Pony jumping again

Went to another jumping competition last weekend and had an interersting day, as ever at these things. First problem was the guys marshalling the car park couldn't work out where to put the trailer as it was so long, we got the usual stares from the locals.......then we unloaded Chester, and attracted more stares and "what is that?" comments

Got him and Fina tacked up, took them to the collecting ring, sent Ali in on Fina who immediately started playing up as she didn't want to leave him, then didn't want to do any work and kept trying to head out the gate......this is what happens if she doesn't get her usual amount of work I suppose. Anyway, Ali got her back on track and concentrating on going over some jumps and once she'd let off a bit of steam she soon settled.

Meanwhile I narrowly avoided being mown down by a child on a small Shetland who had no control whatsoever when said Shetland decided to tank off out of the arena and scoff some grass......

Eventually, after the usual Obligatory French Faffing About Time (OFAT), as Mike calls it, it was Fina's turn to jump. I was wondering how she would react as it was in an indoor school for the first time, but she was fine about it and just ran out at one jump because, as Ali said herself, she got her line wrong.

 

Then Ali went and warmed Chester up. I stayed with Fina and thus didn't hear some of the comments the locals were making about Ches, according to Ali and Hollie it was along the lines of "look at the size of those legs, he'll never get off the ground" (if I had I would have had something to say to them, I can assure you). Anyway, Ches cleared the practise jumps beautifully so hopefully that shut them up!

We were all hoping he'd go clear in his round to prove them wrong but unfortunately as soon as he went in he was looking around a bit concerned and I guess he'd never been in an indoor school before. He had a refusal, then jumped it and carried on round but having a really good look at them all, and after a couple more runouts, got eliminated. But the ones he did jump, he didn't touch......

 

 

Still, we were pretty pleased with him first time out and I think a few jumping lessons up at the club and he'll be good to go for future comps.

We watched a load more classes, there was far too much in the way of strapping mouths shut/gags/martingales etc for my liking and a lot of uncomfortable looking horses, as well as far too many kids wearing spurs and clearly not knowing how to use them properly......

And the inevitable breaking loose of horses from trailers followed by running shouting owners. Every single time, that happens.......

The Sunday Hooley Gang.....

Sunday mornings seem to be the time for those of us that like a fast ride to go out for a hack. We did 11kms yesterday in ridiculously mild weather for mid November, came back with some very warm horses, even the Thoroughbred worked up a sweat!

Mr Gandalf was keen to run as usual, after the previous day's amble when he was also keen to run, but my companion wasn't, so he contented himself with some piaffe-like trotting when told he couldn't go charging off......

So yesterday we had Gary the Fearless (typical bloke, only been riding about a year, no idea what could actually go wrong so he charges about the countryside regardless of terrain or conditions underfoot). He's very laid back, which is perfect for Le Sorcier who is a typical sensitive, big girl's blouse, OMG my rider's worried, what shall I be scared of? TB (sorry to any TB owners out there who have big brave ones).

Then my (over)confident daughter, riding Chester, who due to lack of exercise and excess energy has been doing entirely too much bucking and charging off recently - fine in the field but not so good when you've got a 10 year old on your back. Or not, as turned out to be the case by the time he'd finished........

And finally, there is the aforementioned 10 year old, Hollie, now fully equipped with air jacket, on Polo, who is a great little pony but also has his moments..

So off we went, the other three hooleyed up the stony hill in the woods (Mr Gandalf doesn't do hooleying on stones), then hooleyed on through some vines, the others seemingly oblivious to the muddy, slippery bits, Mr Gandalf doesn't like cantering on slippery ground either so we took it somewhat more steadily....

So, dodgy incidents included Sorcier nearly failing to see a ditch and swerving away from it at the last minute (Gary stayed on!), Polo spooking at a pheasant (Hollie stayed on!) and Ches doing his head down bucking bronco party piece (Ali stayed on!), and Chester bit the dog (she yelped!)

No one hit the deck at all, in fact.....until we got back and Hollie jumped off Polo - totally forgetting she hadn't unclipped her air jacket, and the force of it inflating knocked her off her feet!

Wonder how many times that's going to happen......?

Some thoughts on jumping

Not a big deal to a lot of people. Me, I never really liked it. Probably because the horse I learned to ride on was a fat old cob called Fothergill. Now my regular readers will know that I have no problems with fat old cobs, as Gandalf is one of those and he's the horse of a lifetime. But Fothers, as he was (un)affectionately known, was totally different. He seemed  to me, as I was at the age of 10 or 11, to spend his entire life thinking up ways to make my life unpleasant.

He was stiff and wooden and when the other horses did a nice circle he would spend most of the time pulling on the bit to go in a straight line. He would stop dead when asked to trot. He really made me work for any kind of response in fact. At the time I called him a stupid horse. I didn't know any better. And he was really, really good at getting his rider to go over a jump without him......

He was hogged and trimmed in fine old British cob showing style, so I didn't even have a mane to grab on to. He would lumber up to the jump, exhibiting enough energy to fool me into thinking that he'd actually go over it this time, then stop dead and stand there as I somersaulted over his head and landed in the sand.

I never did develop enough of a good seat at the time to stay with him. I realise now, having seen another cob doing the same thing just today, that he'd simply drop his shoulder and as I was totally unbalanced, off I'd go.

Sadly I have no photographs of this equine paragon as my parents used to drop me off at the stables' gate and beat a hasty retreat. Not something my daughters can ever accuse me of!

Although Fothergill is long gone, his legacy lives on. Which means that I have spent a lot of time not jumping stuff because of those unpleasant memories. And to be fair, Gandalf doesn't exactly seem keen either. But as we need to pop the odd log for TREC competitions, we do have to occasionally make the effort.

Recently, a tree came down on the campsite. It's not huge, really, but it's very solid, in the way that only tree trunks can be. Needless to say, Alienor was merrily flinging  ponies over it without a second thought straight away.

I looked at it the other day and thought......nah, bit too big.

Today the girls were again flinging ponies over it and I decided to go for it. Hadn't even had a drink at lunchtime.........and we did it!

Terrible position, as my daughter was quick to point out. I tend to adopt the hunting type "stay on at all costs" seat, rather than the elegant showjumping style the kids are taught. But WE DID IT!!!

There's even a video

Who says Percherons and fat birds can't jump? ;-)

Still up for running about...

First hack out since our holiday on Sunday and the boy was on form, we only did an average of 8km/h but I wasn't on my own. Had some great hooleys though, really pleased with Ali in this one as she managed to stop Fina chasing off after Sorcier for the first time :-)

Second bit of film, up the gallop track, G got a bit excited. There was a poor cyclist at the top of the hill who looked like he was sneaking into the vines to answer a call of nature and suddenly had 4 horses galloping towards him.....

Thenn I got out last night for a quick 7kms with Ali. Only one sticky moment, when some cattle were very interested in Choccy, and were running arouund near the fence Missy Hissy Yellow Pony threw her toys out of the pram big time, and it took ages to ger her past them.....

Then just past the cows there was a piece of electric tape across the path, not wishing to find out the hard way if it was live, we had to turn round and go back past them. Even with all that faffing about we still managed 8km/h.

Lovely evening for it......

A somewhat soggy holiday.....

Haven't been around for a couple of weeks as we've been on our annual holiday to the UK. This time we went to Anglesey where wifi apparently hasn't yet been invented......

Stayed in a great holiday cottage near Beaumaris, discovered a great little ruined castle just up the road and a moody windswept beach down the road, yomped the kids around both!

We did the usual tourist stuff, including yomping small children up Snowdon (they were unimpressed)

....although we had to give up and turn back 2kms from the summit due to rather a lot of weather arriving, horizontal sleet, fog etc......Mike had already run up to the top though - and said you couldn't see a damn thing up there when we met him on his was back down!

Rather stunning countryside up there - the bits we could see, anyway.......

Of course we also went riding, a fun ride to the beach where we did some great canters, I managed to get a few shots before the rain arrived and forced me to put the camera away

Map and more photos of that ride here.

Great scenery in Wales, horses everywhere on Anglesey, could be a cool place to live if you were waterproof ;-) The sun did put in an appearance occasionally though, like the day we arrived and the day we left......