Lovely day

Yesterday was the coolest day of the week, so we decided to go for a day ride. Ali's friend Aurelie came with us on her little TB, Solium. The first canter truned into a flat out gallop as Seraphina decided she didn't want to be overtaken by him!

Subsequent canters were enlivened by her throwing her hind legs at him to ensure he didn't go past her again......

We stopped by a local lake for a spot of lunch, then rode back. Map of the route here. It had warmed up a bit by the time we got back so the girls stripped off and went in the river again. Seraphina went for a swim.......and so did Aurelie when Solium decided to exit the water in a hurry......!

Seraphina sure does like the wet stuff.... :-)

Hydrotherapy

As it was ridiculously hot this morning, having finished the poo picking by 9.30 we decided to take the horses for a dip in the river.

Hollie and Ali wanted to really go for it and had their swimming kit on, I didn't bother as G is not generally a fan of the wet stuff. Turns out this was a bit of a mistake, as he went much further in than I expected and I got bootfuls of water......

Polo was OK in the water up to a certain point, but Seraphina the water baby really went for it! Think they all had fun....

Choccy enjoyed it too!

Fete du Cheval

Went to the Fete du Cheval on Sunday at the Western Horse Farm where I had my lesson last year. They had a load of stuff organised, a rallye in the morning that I would have loved to have done, and all afternoon there were demostrations of different disciplines. Jo asked me to go along because she was doing a showjumping demo on Socianda and I had to do the commentary in French. Luckily she'd written it all down for me in English so all I had to do was translate. Don't have any pics of the jumping as I was holding a microphone, but Socianda did brilliantly and jumped up to 1m15

After that we had a Western Trail demo, which as far as I could tell was TREC in a Western saddle

This lovely horse was a 21 year old Anglo who did everything in just a headcollar, and his rider didn't need spurs, maybe because she didn't feel the need to do the whole macho cowboy thing? Or is that just me being unfair on the boys.....?

After that we had a dressage demo, this rider was apparently runner up in the Championat d'Aquitaine, she did a freestyle to music,

Then there was a lovely team of Bretons...

...and finally some Western reining. This is Frederick, who runs the place, on his stallion Smart which apparently won the National Championships last year.

I actually quite like his riding, apart from this:

And there was another chap on a gorgeous palomino QH

His sliding stops were a bit less dramatic

....and that mane looked fab doing the spins, although to be honest I don't really see the point of doing that to a horse either.

Then we had to go home because the SNO was reaching her sell-by date, which is a shame as the dressage lady was going to do a garrocha demo later in the day, would like to have seen that.......and they also had some fun barrel racing, and Socianda came second beating all those Western horses. Stewart took some video, it looks so much fun:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsdivu_jo-barrel-racing-for-fun-at-western-show-july-12_sport?start=3

Don't try this at home.......

Was watching Horse and Country TV last night and Monty Roberts and Kelly Marks were doing a desensitising demo. There was a lot of warning people not to try this with their horses etc, but we ignored that this afternoon.......

Having done a lot of work previously with them, I knew Gandalf and Seraphina wouldn't have a problem with the whole flag thing.

Or the standing up thing (I had a go at this but am too fat and old to actually manage to stand up so my glamorous assistant did it instead)

Polo and Sorcier, on the other hand, weren't letting it anywhere near!!

We went back to a somewhat smaller flag for Polo but he still wasn't keen......

.......and I spent a while walking around the old boys' field carrying that same tiny flag, wth Gandalf following me everywhere, before Soso would even stop long enough to look at it. Have left it wedged in a fence post to see if he gets a bit more used to it.......

It takes time and patience but I reckon it's worth it, last weekend's jumping competition was very windy and so many horses refused to go anywhere near the judges becuase they had a flappy tent over their table......but Seraphina didn't turn a hair.

My girl looks so grown up.....

Took Ali to another SJ comp on Sunday, she is really getting the hang of it now. There was a professional photographer and I just had to invest in this shot

This was taken in the club 4 class, the third class of the day for Seraphina who was evidently bored by that stage as she had 3 refusals and got eliminated. Still, she won the first class and just had a pole down in the clear round class so not too bad really :-)

Le Puy du Fou

Just got back from a couple of days at the Puy du Fou, which is kind of a historical theme park up near Nantes. They reenact scenes from different periods of history on a grand scale. Lots and lots of horses, ridden by long haired blokes in leather wielding swords, pretty much perfect for me ;-) The horses mainly looked Spanish, with the odd Percheron in there to pull the body cart in the roman ampitheatre.......

Some pictures:

Well worth a visit if you're ever in the area......

Polework......

Kinna was very funny today. Got her and Fina out to do a bit of polework. Put Kinns on the long lines, she decided she'd rather hooley around than pay attention for a bit........eventually got her attention and showed her some poles to walk over, in an attempt to get her to work out where she needs to put her feet which isn't always her strong point.......

What's this?

OK, what do I do now?

Got it, I think!

Then did a bit on just one lunge line, when she was paying attention she was great, but she kept trying to take off after Ali and Fina.....

So after I'd got her to listen to me for a bit, I let her off and she was hilarious......

Ali and Fina were practising bending over poles, she is quite stiff through the neck, particularly to the right, she tends to lean in and "motorbike" rather than bending through her body.

Hopefully doing this kind of thing regularly will help, along with some TTouch massage. Ali is purposefully keeping the reins loose and using her hands as little as possible so Fina doesn't do her arguing and bracing through the neck thing. She decided to try her in the Myler today to see if she went better than in the bitless. With very little rein pressure, she seemed fine with it. Will try her jumping in it next.......

She also tried the circle of poles exercise that she's been shown by Louise, kind of like this, but we're not worrying about the number of strides.....

........some work to do there!