Fun in the sun.......

Have had a great day with the ponies and the kids today, Hollie and Polo came to join us and we've been doing some practising.

Started off with a practise of the HT youngsters challenge (full details here), they soon realised that the egg and spoon bit isn't as easy as it looks, neither is one handed riding!

Some more work to be done there.......

Then we moved on to polework, and transitions, gave them something else to think about......

and we finished up the morning session with a bit of jumping the scarey black plastic draped over the pole!

Neither of them was too keen on this at the start, here's some video:

After lunch we went for a little hack, guess who had to walk? Yep, that'd be me as the SNO insisted on riding too......

Sky was full of beans and danced about a bit, especially when the other two went off for a hooley, and the SNO thought this was all great fun! She even did a big spook when the others came back.......and Éowyn laughed. And told her off........

She was grinning the whole time.

Kinna goes solo

Took Kinna out on her own today. Was expecting some shenanigans as she hasn't been away from other horses for months and months, but she surprised me!
We went over the bridge, she had a good look at everything but happily followed me over.....

She didn't mind any of the traffic, we went through the little town and she was OK with that and we went down the path by the river.

She was unworried enough to graze, we went right down to the water, she didn't go as far as getting her feet wet but she was quite happy to stand there whilst Choccy hoolied in and out of the water.....

Then after a bit more grazing we went back along the river to the quai. She was more concerned about going under the bridge, she spooked at a rattly tractor going over it when she was about to go under, but in the end she was OK. The other side of the bridge is a flight of stone steps that go back up to the top, I was going to carry on along to the road that goes up, but Kinna had other ideas - she saw Choccy go up the steps and she started following her! She skipped gracefully right up to the top with me rushing along behind her, then stopped dead as if to say "how did I get up here?!"......

She's a funny little character. Apparently she's been investigating the toilet blocks on the campsite when let out to graze so she's obviously been practising her stairs technique

Mind you, she isn't so little any more, she's really growing now, must get the stick out and measure her.

Good horsemanship has been around a while.....

It is comforting to know that despite centuries of harsh handling of horses by man, there were some enlightened horsemen out there before "horse whispering" became fashionable.......I went to Bolsover Castle last year and saw the manege built in the 18th century by William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle. He wrote a book called A General System of Horsemanship in 1743, which is a fascinating read.

This is from the introduction:

There are some people, who, as soon as they have got upon a young horse, entirely undressed (untrained) or untaught, fancy, that by beating and spurring they will make him a dress'd horse in one morning only. I would fain ask such stupid people, whether, by beating a boy, they could teach him to read, without first shewing him his alphabet?

Ony problem is the book is reprinted in the original typeface so the letter s looks like an f, makes it tricky to read:

I would fain afk fuch ftupid people......

Cavendish built the most magnificent stables for his horses, you can see them in the background of these pics from the book

And when we visited of course, Ali had to try out the manège!

Interdressage without a bit......

OK, so I have been playing around with the bosal on Gandalf for a while now. Absolutely fine on hacks, no problems with the brakes. So today I thought I'd try to do the ID test in it. As soon as he got into the "arena" (grassy bit of commune land over the road) he wanted to canter, every time I asked for trot he tried to shoot off, I thought perhaps I'd need to go back for his Myler.......but after a few minutes he started to relax and listen to me and we got a nice rhythm going. So I did a few run throughs of the test (which includes leg yield) this afternoon, then took him back home to have some thinking time (and wait for Ali to get back from school to film us).

Then we went back out there, same thing, can I eat? No, can I rush off then? But got him listening again, and went for a take. It's not great, but there were moments when he was softening nicely and not rushing so we'll enter it and see what feedback we get. As you can see, the leg yield isn't  nailed either, he finds it especially hard towards the left, work in progress.

Discovered that although these HD videos on my new camera take AGES to upload, you can get decent stills from them!

Fina's first jumping competition

Had a great day today. Bit of a change from the rain on last week's Rallye, glorious sunshine, we've gone from worrying about keeping the horses dry to worrying about them getting too hot in the sun!

We found the place easily enough, less than an hour's drive away, parked up, unloaded and had our picnic. The girls' class was due to start at 2, but allowing for French faff time this became 3.......Fina got bored of her haynet after an hour or so, so I took her for a little wander round the show in hand. She neighed and neighed at the other horses, the people by the collecting ring thought this was very funny and she soon attracted a crowd of admirers. She didn't seem too stressed though! After a while I took her back to be tacked up, Ali rode her around for a bit, she was cool with that.

Then it was time to walk the course, or jump the course according to Ali and Hollie.....

They then raced off to get on the horses and mill about aimlessly with the rest of the competitors for a bit until they were allowed into the collecting ring. They popped the jumps in there fine,
then there was more milling about until it was time to do the round.

Fina put in a huge jump over the first which was a spread, this surprised Ali somewhat and she had to work hard to steady her after that and dropped down to a trot. Unfortunately she lost too much impulsion so had a refusal at the fourth, but apart from that, Ali got her round (despite some arguing from Missy) and left all the poles up!

Here's the video

Ali was delighted with her and can't wait for the next show.......

Taking Kinna for a spin

Haven't taken Kinna out for ages, not since the Eric Trelut weekend, so today I saddled up Chester and took her out for a stroll. Was expecting some shenanigans, but she wasn't too bad at all, having a good look round at everything, but staying pretty calm really.

We met a tractor, bicycles, a rattly lorry (3 times, think he was lost) and various dogs, sheep and goats and she didn't seem to think any of these were going to eat her. Ches thought they were all very interesting and kept calling to things, like crowing roosters.... :-/

We went past the fruit trees, these were OK

and we found a new track, nice canter track.......

 but unfortunately, Kinna's stride is significantly longer than Ches's, she being rather well endowed in the leg department, and him, um, well, not.......so after one disastrous attempt (picture a pygmy goat trying to keep pace with a baby giraffe) we had to confine ourselves to trotting and even then she kept trying to get ahead of him and biting him. She looks all timid and worried, but she's shaping up to be a right bossy mare, she had a go at poor old Gandalf the other day, he is definitely not in charge of her any more!!

When we saw another horse, she wanted to go and make her mark, exactly the same as Fina does, I had to reel her back in to carry on with us!

The only spook was caused by some horse eating flappy green plastic on a fence, there was a bit of a breeze today, so she skittered about somewhat until she clocked Ches, head down and munching right in front of it and decided it was safe after all......

We did about 8kms today, must try and get her out on a more regular basis, for her feet as much as anything.....

Gandalf's MOT

After the dentist yesterday the osteopath came today. As Gandalf hasn't been quite right since he came home, I got her to give him a workover and I'm glad I did because he had one of his lumbar vertebrae out of line, and she said if I'd left it he would have had problems with siatica again. Apart from that she says he is looking good and not only can continue to do the mileage we do, but he should continue to keep him in good shape.

He doesn't seem to mind the strange things she does.....

...in fact he obviously enjoys it!

Dentist!!!

Our lovely dentist, Ian, from Raid Equestrian came to do Polo's teeth today so I dragged Kinna over to watch. As she's only 2 1/2 she doesn't need hers doing yet, but he says it's always worth getting them used to what he does so he put the nasty looking metal thing in her mouth......and she was pretty OK with it, really......

Will get him to do the same with Sky when he comes back to do the others later this year......

Full of the joys of spring.......

Very "interesting" walk out with Sky this morning, lots of silliness and spooking.......which is not like Little Miss Sensible at all!

We met Choccy's two greyhound mates again, she was not happy about them running round at all, them there were tractors in the vines and a MAN WITH A WHITE BUCKET!!!! Cue much snorting, jumping about and giraffing.....even after I went to talk to him (not that he was too keen on being approached by the lunatic on the other end of my leadrope.....)

She kept a very careful eye on the tractor putting in fenceposts too....eventually calmed down enough to stuff down some grass in that kind of "better eat quick cos I'll probably have to run away fom that in a second" kind of way......

Which is probably the problem, she doesn't get a lot of spring grass, but maybe it's enough to set her off. Either that or she's being a hormonal teenager at the moment.......

Still, we finished our little circuit, which involves roads, grass and lots of varied stony/gravelly/rocky bits, so all good for her feet, which are a lot less prone to chipping since the barefoot trimmer has been doing them.....

A Rallye in the rain

It hasn't rained here for weeks, so of course because we were off to do a rallye today (an organised ride followed by a slap up meal) the heavens opened, naturally....

Team Horsetales wasn't too bothered at the start....

....but it rained and rained, and the girls were cold and miserable by the time we got to the casse croute.

Think they've gone native, no Stiff Upper Lip in sight. I quite liked it, reminded me of my childhood, riding in the rain......
Anyway, with some food and drink on board, they perked up. We got overtaken by a vintage car rally

and rode up some great (if somewhat muddy) tracks

Choccy rolled in (and ate) some choice brown stuff, and ran through lots of puddles.....

in fact by the end of the ride, you couldn't really see her hi viz vest. Then it was back to base for the meal, which was fabulous

and a spot of line dancing, the SNO was quite keen on this.....!

So a great day out, thanks to our friends Jo and Stewart and the Association PINCE who organised it.

Leadership....

Having recently been criticised for being too "hard line" with my horses and "bullying" them, I was very interested to come across this blog post

I agree with pretty much everything in it. Horses like to know we can be in charge of them and keep them safe. Gandalf loves being with Seraphina, although she "bullies" him unmercifully. I spend a lot of time watching my horses' interactions (sad, I know) and she is pretty relentless, moving him around, biting him, keeping him away from any hay she wants, changing her mind about which pile of hay she does want and moving him around again and again.........but if she goes out without him, even if he's left with Sky, he gets very agitated and calls and calls for her. She is his leader; she makes him feel safe.

That's what I try to do for my horses. Make them feel safe. Sometimes to do that  have to take them out of their comfort zone, let them get worried, frightened, then be there to show them that actually, it's OK, nothing bad will happen. This involves a lot of umbrellas, dogs, flappy plastic, going past scary places over and over again and not being fazed by any "undesirable" behaviour. And above all, being consistent with my own behaviour........

So the way I see it, you can either change your horse to fit in with what you want to do (hack out alone, do a TREC course, ride along a main road, go to a competition, ride past that scary dog) or you can change your life to keep your horse in his comfort zone, not take him away from from his fieldmates and not do all those competitions/fun rides/hacks you'd really like to do. I made my choice a long time ago........

Sometimes people really get on my nerves......

As you probably know, my husband Mike is running the London Marathon to raise money for World Horse Welfare. Someone yesterday told us they couldn't possibly sponsor him as it's "only for horses", not whilst there are "children dying in Africa".

It really, really annoys me when people make such statements without checking out the facts. This person clearly has no idea of what WHW actually does. Mike has blogged about this, far better than I could have, you can read his post here

I've lost my ride....

The SNO declared that she didn't want to ride up front of me today (and it hurts my back at the moment to have her there) so guess who got to walk?

And not just walk, oh no, "mummy can we trot?" started as soon as we'd left the drive.......

After the first attempt, when she nearly ran down an unfortunate passerby (and his dog!) I had to do a fair bit of running alongside her to be ready with the brakes.......

....and when her sister wanted to jump a ditch, yes you guessed it, we had to do that too

I need a sit down now!!!