Baby horse update

Took the girl out for a walk the other day, she was a star, soooo much easier than Sky......

Éowyn took some pics and a couple of them were even in focus

 Then Éowyn asked if she could ride her, so she had a quick sit on. No problem, Tari just turned and sniffed her feet, then went over to the verge and started eating.......

So here is a first clip for her training video diary, Éowyn is every bit as good at Shakycam as her sister......

I have recently been getting her used to having me walk alongside her as well as in front or at her head, in preparation for starting some in hand training. As you can see, she thinks this gives her free rein (pardon the pun) to dive for the grass on the verge!

Boot camp

Ali's been a bit frustrated recently at the lack of opportunity or venue to do any work with Sky, and Sky has been a contrary little git about going forwards out hacking, so I decided to try something different today. Found this place via a group on FB and it's only half an hour's hack from us, in fact we've ridden past the road down to it many a time, didn't know it was there.....

Annoyingly, as the crow flies, it's 5 minutes away, but someone very inconsiderately put the M5 between it and our yard....

Anyway, Sky was her predictable nappy self on the way there (I followed in the car) and got very excited when she saw another horse on its way back ahead of her, so by the time we arrived she was all hot and bothered. I had warned the instructor, Sarah, what she can be like......but she was cool and just said take her in the school and we'll see what happens.

Sky pranced off snorting and neighing but settled quite quickly - and as soon as she realised she was having to do some work, she resorted to trying to stop and nap to the gate, then to the barn at the far end where some other horses were......this is, according to Sarah, because her basic schooling isn't in place and she doesn't unquestioningly go off the rider's leg. So the rest of the session was spent concentrating on not letting her get away with any stopping and in the end she kinda got the message.

 

Sarah recommended we take a dressage whip out and use it to reinforce the leg aid if she doesn't listen. She also immediately asked why she wasn't ridden in a bit......

So am I being to "fluffy" with Sky? Should she have done more lunging as a youngster (another recommendation)? I don't know. What I DO know is that Ali really enjoyed the lesson, got a lot out of it and wants to go back next week, so that's what we'll do.

Your Horse Live

Now we're in the UK, many events we never used to be able to get to are now merely a wait in a motorway traffic queue away......yesterday we decided to make the trip up the M5 to Your Horse Live. Quite a good day out, but not the best event I've been to all year.....

Took us half an hour to get into the car park, which was a muddy field at 10 am and by the time we came to leave, they'd had to get some tractors out on standby to drag cars out, luckily we were very near the hard track so managed to get out unaided (my old car would have needed help from a tractor )

Once inside, I couldn't believe just how much shopping there was, more even than at Olympia.......We had a job fighting our way through the crowds oohing and aahing over the sparkly browbands and embroidered jackets to actually get to an arena. At one point we nearly walked into Charlotte Dujardin wearing a huge furry headband thing......

The smaller arena was good, you didn't have to queue for ages like for the main arena. We saw Jason Webb in action, I like him, have seen his bridleless riding vids online before. He did a demo on his horse Diesel and they clearly have a great relationship. He was bridleless, guiding him with his seat and a long whip for showing direction and he was refreshingly honest about this being a work in progress and what had worked well at home wasn't working so well in front of a crowd elsewhere (as the horse charged round the arena without listening to him at first) but he stuck with it and got there in the end.

Ali really liked him so went to get his autograph afterwards

We listened to a few people in the equine Learning Zone, there was a Q&A session with Carl Hester, Jason Webb, Paul Tapner & Ben Hobday...

Outside they had the Rescue Village, with all the charities bringing some inmates along, and Hovis, of Horse and Hound fame, was there, looking very fed up with being shut in a stable and kicking the door to bits....

Then we went to queue up for the main arena to watch Paul Tapner in action. He did a quick masterclass on riding cross country fences.....

But most importantly, we saw the guys from the Centre of Horseback Combat again, and I treated myself and Ali to an early Christmas present :-)

Don't know if we'll go to YHL again though, as I said, too much shopping and not enough horses for my liking........

Horse archery championships

Last weekend saw Ali and I climbing blearily into a car full of camping equipment at 6 am. After our nice welcome at the European archery competition a couple of weeks ago, we decided to go along to the British Horseback Archery Association's annual championships. A flurry of emails and phone calls during the week testifying to her ability to stay on a horse had secured Ali a place in the competition.

We had also arranged to pick up a total stranger and fellow HBA enthusiast from Bristol on the way. Susie turned out to be very nice and coincidentally to share some of our fluffier views on such things as bitting and shoeing horses, so the journey passed quickly....

On arrival at the Centre of Horseback Combat, it was raining, so we steeled ourselves to go and stand in a soggy field for the day. We could at least huddle damply under the judge's tent, unlike the people taking part, who got very, very wet.....

Still, by the time it got to Ali's first event, something called the Australian Triple, the rain stopped and the sun even came out, so she managed to stay relatively dry. She got handed her mount, one of only two who can deal with left-handed archers, a nice boy called Jupiter.....

This event turned out to be a lot like the club 2 competition in France, you can carry your arrows in the hand and start with one nocked on the string. She managed to get one in a target, probably should have saved the victory dance until after she'd finished the run though..... ;-) There were 3 targets per run, the first and last angled so the last one was a back shot, that'll need some practise!

Anyway, she actually came fourth, and was very happy to get a rosette :-)


The next event, for the more experienced archers, was something called the Mamluk, which involved doing a long shot, a forward shot,  a Jarmaki, which is a target flat on the ground, a back shot and an offside shot. Great one to photograph!

After that, it was back to the car to extract the aforementioned camping gear and set up camp. As the sun went down, so did the temperature, so we took the only prudent course of action and retired to the pub for a few fortifying pints and some nice hot grub.

The next day dawned chilly, with frost on the ground (and in Ali's hair!) but at least it wasn't raining. That day's event was the Korean competition which everyone did. The main problem here for Ali was that for 4 of the 6 runs you can't start with an arrow nocked, so there are many photos of her doing this....!

So the best we can say about the Korean event is that she got a rosette for taking part.... ;-)

A fun weekend, met some great new people, and a lot of them are Firefly fans as it turns out, so they can't be all bad.....looking forward to the next event. Need to get some serious practise beforehand though ;-)

Proper horse archers......

Went to watch the UK leg of the European Horse Archery Grand Prix series this weekend. First challenge was actually finding the venue, which was the Centre of Horseback Combat Had the postcode I'd found online for them been accurate, we might not have spent most of the morning driving around tiny country lanes looking for the place.....in the end we took the only sensible course of action and repaired to a pub with wifi for lunch, got the phone number from the website and phoned them.

Having finally arrived (turns out we'd driven past it twice) and trudged along the traditional muddy tracks, we were greeted by the people who run the place telling us to keep Choccy on the lead and away from their huge (and presumably quite grumpy) Dyrewolf like dog.......

So we briskly strolled over to where the action was taking place and some nice people immediately introduced themselves and started telling us what was going on and who was who.

There were 4 teams, GB, Poland, Poland and Finland, and one of the GB guys was on the most gorgeous Haffie, you sure knew when he was coming up the run....

That'll be Tari in a couple of years :-) Although probably with a significantly dirtier tail ;-)

Spent a while talking to one of the Swedish guys (who of course spoke perfect English) about the merits of the thumb draw versus the 3 finger draw, as you do, and the NO made herself useful bossing the British team members' two small sons around and occasionally "helping" to collect arrows......

Yesterday's comp was all about the Hungarian style of archery where you have the targets up high (like Club 1 in France), we were hoping to get back today for the Korean shooting (separate targets on the ground, like for Club 2 & 3) and something called the Mamluk, which apparently involves having to shoot at targets at all sorts of different angles, including on BOTH sides of you (more on that here) but ran out of time largely due to massive traffic queues on the M25......

After Saturday's comp, Team GB were just in the lead, but they had 4 team members and the Poles in second only 3, they are amazing archers!

Some great kit on display too, love this quiver.....

Wish Hemel Hempstead wasn't so bloody far away......

Loads more photos here

And so it begins.....

Took Gandalf and Tari out for a hack today. So far, Tari has been very reasonable on the lead rope, following along happily, not really worrying about anything and only occasionally trying for a sneaky mouthful of grass.....but today, things changed. She discovered the Kinna manoeuvre.....

As we were happily trotting along, she stopped dead. I managed to get G to stop before the rope ran out, he's kind of used to it now (largely thanks to Kinna) and as soon as he feels me lean back, he slows down. I thought Tari might be having a poo, but no, she was just stopped, looking at me mutinously.

OK, I thought, we'll carry on, which she did, reluctantly. All went well until we were nearly home, when she did it again, right next to the verge of lush green grass......this time G was not so keen to stop, being fixed on getting home but I just about managed it without having to drop Tari's rope by doing a pretty good impression of Elastigirl from The Incredibles.....a passing motorist slowed right down in alarm (or maybe he was hoping to see me dragged out of the saddle) but I managed to get my ropes sorted and reel the little git back in.

She didn't actually get to scoff any grass (unlike Kinna the first time she tried it, as I had to drop the rope that time!) so maybe she'll get the idea that it doesn't work....or maybe next time out I'll get my arms lengthened again, we'll see. Probably doesn't help that she is having to be in the yard on hay only with Gandalf whose digestive system hasn't coped at all well with the abundant grass during my absence this summer. They would both far prefer to be out with the herd, but they won't be until the boy's gut is working properly again - and they will both have to be muzzled the whole time until the grass stops growing.

As for Sky, well before Ali could do anything with her yesterday, she had to let of a bit of steam!!

After that, she did start paying attention and we practised some cantering with the bow, no bogging off in alarm, she even got the hang of stopping just with a voice command at the end of each "run" :-)

 

Horse archery

Just got back from 3 weeks in France (where we no longer have wifi at the house, which is my excuse for not blogging for ages), supposedly on holiday but actually ended up on a kind of extended horse archery training course.....as you do!

This is a new FFE discipline and John at our old club has taken it up big time. As they had a competition planned for the final weekend of our stay, we decided it'd be fun to have a go. Ali of course got to ride Kinna, and as she's been doing field archery for a few years, turned out to be some good at it.

I on the other hand, got totally thrashed by everyone in Club 3 (the easiest level, all at the walk), even the kids on a lead rein. But it really was a lot of fun :-)

We went for several training sessions, including one where I managed to fall off Nanou, she only has 2 speeds, plodding along like a donkey or full speed racehorse and I ended up swearing (and laughing) a lot as she tanked off up the run.....

Needless to say, I can only actually hit the target when she's in donkey mode ;-)

John has done a really good job with Kinns, she totally gets what you have to do and doesn't bat an eyelid at any of it.....

Didn't want to come home.......

White Horse 3 - Alton Barnes

Went to see my favourite one, at Alton Barnes in Wiltshire, when on our way to Portsmouth to get the boat to France. Guess what, it was raining again.....

This horse was created by a Mr Robert Pile in 1812. Apparently Mr Pile paid twenty pounds to a journeyman painter, John Thorne, also known as Jack the Painter, to design the white horse and have the work of cutting it carried out.   But before the work was finished Thorne took off with the money, and Mr Pile was left to pay out again........

We went to the nearby village of Alton Prior to find the big stone which has a carving of the horse on it, the lichen is starting to take over though.....

There is a tradition of lighting the white horses to mark special occasions, and in recent times the horse has been lit with candles such as on 30th June 2012, marking its 200th anniversary. Which looked very cool.....(photo courtesy of Terry Waldron)

And here's a pic taken from the air by those Last Refuge people again......on a sunny day!

The Great British Summer

When we told people we were moving back to the UK they all said "Why? The weather is terrible...."

But no, not this year. After a very mild winter with no snow at all, and me worrying about being able to fight my way through huge drifts on treacherous country lanes down to the horses in the Kangoo (which has been known to get stuck on nothing more than some wet grass), not a single flake. So much for my argument that we'll NEED a 4 x 4 here in the winter (which would incidentally be able to tow the horse trailer I haven't got yet either)......

And now, well, summer is here. We've had fabulous weather for weeks. Yes, the odd torrential downpour/thunderstorm, but apart from that wall to wall sunshine. And flies, ticks and mosquitoes.....but at least we didn't need to break out the fly masks back in April like we did in the Dordogne.

So the horses are having a bit of a holiday at the moment as it's just too warm to expect them to do much, and unlike in France, it's humid, which is yuk.

They don't seem to mind :-)

Unfortunately for Tari, the downpours mean too much grass, so she has to have a muzzle on most of the time. Doesn't stop her eating though ;-)

So normal service will resume when it's a bit cooler - and we haven't got to wrangle the NO who finished school today *sigh*

New toy :-)

Oops, I haven't posted for ages, life kinda got in the way......work, moving house, that kind of thing.....

Anyway, yesterday was my birthday and I finally got that digital SLR camera I have always craved. Obviously the damned thing is way beyond my humble capacities to understand, but there are plenty of idiotproof settings and today I took it out for a spin.

So here are some pics for you:

The eyes have it.....

Yesterday we had a very interesting morning down at the Equine Eye Clinic, turns out Tari's eyes are not normal at all. Was talking to them at the vet's open day the other week and they said they had an eye specialist who'd be very interested in seeing a silver dapple as they often have eye problems linked to the gene that gives them the colour. I had read something about that online before so I was interested in finding out more too. So I took her along when G had his MOT (he's fine, the COPD is better than last year in fact) and  had to leave her there overnight as she's been sedated to be poked and prodded and photographed.....



Both of her retinas have not formed properly on one side, meaning basically that her vision is compromised at the front of her head, but her peripheral vision is unaffected. Was really interesting looking at the inside of her eyes. The vet is going to send me some of the pics he took. Basically this means she doesn't have a full field of vision but should be perfectly fine to ride as long as her head movement isn't restricted so she can turn her head to compensate and that's why she's always got her nose into everything so she can check stuff out with her whiskers. (He was very impressed with the size of the ones round her eyes and said he's always telling people they should never trim them.....) She was certainly very nosy about the nice shiny trailer in the yard when we arrived......

......which had been used to transport........a llama for a haircut. That was very interesting too!

Went back to fetch her this morning and she was her usual laid back self walking home, more interested in eating grass than worrying about stuff. So nothing really to worry about, Ali used to ride a one eyed horse in France and he managed fine, jumping and everything. Don't think we'll ever be breeding from her though.......

One year on......

Can't believe it's been a year already since I brought Tari home. This is what she looked like then

and here she is today

She was being a bit nosey bout Sky's tack, so I thought I'd see how she liked wearing it.....

....didn't seem too bothered!

Sky's extra wide cob saddle seems to be a good fit now so she's definitely going to need the treeless by the time she's old enough to ride!

Lovely day so we took her for a walk and jumped some ditches :-)