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.....
So, Easter holidays are here and we've just been back to la maison en France for a week. Not exactly a holiday, mind you. Spent most of the week running around catching up with people. And drinking wine. Quite a lot of wine, as you do.......
Had lined up some riding lessons for Ali back at the club in Porte Ste Foy. Of course she wanted to ride Kinna. Pretty much as soon as we arrived, Carole was phoning to see if we wanted to come and see the horses getting fitted for their new hoof boots before their endurance comp at the weekend. So we went up there and got to catch up with Howard as he told me all about these new boots, Floating Boots, that he gets from Spain.
Like the look of them, even the sole is flexible......
Then it was down to see Tess and her horses who are in a new home and seem very happy and relaxed there. The yard owner has a Mérens mare who is fabulous, the SNO certainly thought so!
Back up to the stables for Ali to ride Kinna - and the little darling did her Tigger impression specially for us ;-)
Got actual sunburn up there standing by the school, having arrived looking like a pale English person. And that was just day 1......
Ali had another lesson on the Saturday on the lovely Nanou, who showed some really nice moments during the flatwork lesson
But the highlight of the week was going to Kinna's first endurance competition. After the usual crack of dawn start and endless drive, we arrived, unloaded, and she was like an overexcited kid, those funny-coloured ears were flicking at everything.....
She didn't want to stand still, pulled away from the trailer, stuck her head in the locker to get at the hay in there, reminded me of the SNO when she's on a mission to get into trouble......when we went for the vet check, she couldn't keep her feet still and even tried to eat the pot plant I thought all this excitement would mean a high heart rate......but no, it was only 28 bpm!!
Her winter coat is coming out in handfuls and where her skin fell off last year there's nothing left, she looks like a bit of a welfare case! They'll have to put suncream on her! But she is on good form, once she was saddled and wearing her new floating boots, she was impatient to be off.
John was intending to keep her at the back, but by the time they came back, she was out in front.....
.....and looking like she could go round again!
Then there was an argument about having water poured over her, she didn't seem to think that was necessary, although it was pretty hot by then (and I was well on the way to getting sunburned again) and more fidgeting and trying to go off and visit other horses or otherwise trying to get John's attention whilst he was trying to get his other horse ready for the 20k ride. Kinns seems to like him, she follows him about. The second vet check gave a heart rate of 48, not so good, but still not bad for a first time out. She came joint 7th with Carole and Valerie's horses both of whom have done this before a fair bit.
So a good day out, the two girls from Carole's on their ponies did very well for a first go, one of them came first as her pony had a returning heartbeat of 32. I miss those guys, can't wait to get back out there this summer.....
We went to another SJ competition yesterday. The usual sort of thing, had to be up at the stables for 6am (!) to just stand a round for half an hour whilst people faffed about kissing each other, smoking and generally not getting the horses loaded and off in a timely fashion. Such is French riding club life......
Stupid o'clock in the morning.....
Anyway we eventually set off in the dark following two trailers full of ponies. Had to have some loud rock music on in the car to keep me awake. Not much else on the roads which was just as well seeing as we had to keep stopping to apparently deal with something wrong with one of the trailers and thus blocking the road.....then we turned off the main road onto little roads through the vines. Aha, I thought, they know a short cut.....but no, after 20 minutes of driving around in circles it appeared that we were merely lost. Eventually we made it back to the main road and tried a different route and finally arrived at the stables where after a teeth-rattling drive down a track we had to park in the traditional muddy field.
Then there was a mad dash to get a child and pony ready for the first class as we'd missed the course walk at 7.30 (when it was still pretty much dark) due to our scenic tour of the local goat tracks prior to arrival. Then after a scramble to get the rest of them sorted and on board, there was the equally traditional wait - hours of standing around whilst subsequent classes totally failed to start on time.
As a counterpoint to all this frantic inactivity was the local chasse banging away in the background. Not sure what they were after but presumably they were hunting it with machine guns since a lot of the time it sounded like there was a firework display going off somewhere in the woods. This didn't go down to well with many of the equines, who started an impressive display of formation snorting, eye bulging and in some cases, bogging off......
The it was over to the collecting ring to watch the usual uncontrolled galloping about, near collisions and unscheduled dismounts. One poor girl managed to get chucked off a total of five times before getting anywhere near the actual competition arena. Think I'd have realised my horse was trying to tell me something long before reaching such an impressive tally of falls. Our kids managed to avoid the action and I was pleased to see the Ginger One taking it in her stride...
Unfortunately a couple of the other kids from the club got eliminated and had falls so there were the inevitable tears and after listening to them being consoled by various parents and the instructor to no effect I lost patience with it and ended up doing The Speech: "When I was your age I didn't even have my own pony so think yourselves lucky you're even here to get the chance to balls it up and fall off!" etc.
Ali did a couple of reasonable rounds on Nahiade, she had one pole down in the Club 3 as she lost concentration and the beastie rushed at it and pretty much the same thing happened in the 80cm class which resulted in 2 down. They looked pretty good together though :-)
Between rounds we discovered a nice TREC course in the woods so sneaked off to see what Nahiade would make of it....
Then it was back to standing around, trying to drink thé pas bon which is all you ever get at these things and eating cold anaemic frites. Still, there was always the ongoing spectacle of people hitting the deck to give us something to watch, and the usual unpleasant handling of frequently stressed equines by over-horsed children wearing spurs and carrying big sticks. And not just the kids, one bloke treated us to such an abysmal display of terrible riding and totally unsympathetic handling of his horse that I had to suppress the urge to go over and kick him in the bollocks. Could be the last show I attend in this country for a while and I don't think I'll miss it.....
Still, gets you out of the house, eh?
This weekend was the long-awaited forum get together down here. Jane hosted it up in Bonneville as she has a gite for everyone to stay in. The usual suspects all came along, plus some of the girls from oooop north in Brittany. We took Gandalf and Sky along, Tess brought her little Pottock pony, Kyriane, and we had Jane's two, Maverick and Ocarina. But not all in the same place at the same time, as Ocarina hated the girls on sight and they weren't allowed anywhere near "her" man......
So Saturday morning kicked off with two separate hacks going out, the teenagers (Ali & Caitlin) going out for a somewhat rapid ride, followed by me in the car.....
...and the others at a more sedate pace. As the first hack went so quickly, I was able to nip back and catch the others in action too (OK, so a lot of that action was ponies diving for the grass)
The rainy start to the day gave way to a bit of sun after lunch, and after a few more people had arrived we spent the afternoon messing about trying treeless saddles (one of our members is a rep for Trekker saddles) and sitting around eating cake and drinking tea......
Everyone wanted to have a go on Gandalf......
even the SNO!
Saturday night involved a lot of curry and wine.....including this bottle purchased especially for me ;-)
Then on Sunday, after I'd had to be up at half six to send Ali off to her competition with the club, we spent the morning with our EE instructor giving the odd lesson or two.....
...but only getting a little bit wet.
Meanwhile, in St Antoine sur l'Isle, Ali had been putting all that soaring practise to good use on Nahiade and came 6th in both of her classes.
Not entirely sure why they felt the need to include a paddling pool under this jump, but she clearly wasn't bothered by it!
Ali was pleased with her performance, chiefly because Nahiade didn't feel the need to go charging off with her as has happened at previous competitions. And also because when Carole, the instructor, rode her (albeit in a higher class), she only managed 8th.....
Some rain fell out of the sky that afternoon though, the paddling pool must have been full! Back at the meet up, we hid indoors, then went out for a drive to collect Ali at the club after the comp and were glad we'd decided not to ride the horses home that day.....
So the guests offered to ride them back on Monday morning, when it was dull but dry. I followed in the car (again) to show them some of the tracks and got a couple of nice pics
All the horses were good, although Sky insisted on seeing if she could get her rider to take her eye off the ball long enough to get her head down to the grass. Business as usual, then......
We did kinda miss Chester though, as he went to a new home last week :-(
So now I'm back to normality with a heap of soggy washing from Sunday and a kitten who clearly felt dreadfully neglected over the weekend desperate to be in my face all the time ;-)
Not me, obviously. Ali has been doing a fair bit of soaring this week. Jumping practise with Nahiade yesterday, ready for another comp on Sunday, she's entered in the 80cm class....
Nahiade has a habit of drifting to one side to get back to her mates quicker so Ali had to address that, and at the same time stopping her from rushing the fence. She's a complicated beastie due to past treatment and it's taken Ali weeks of patience to get to know how to handle her, but she's getting there..... :-)
After the riding lesson, she went to ride Chester as he's not done much recently. He really isn't a complicated beastie, he doesn't see the point of exerting himself when he could be eating some nice grass but when revved up to it he can jump nicely, anything up to 80cms is nae bother.....
But when Ali put it up to the next notch (which is 104cms, strange grading on those plastic jumps) he decided actually that would require some serious effort and thinking about it, he'd really rather not....
But with a bit of encouragement, he actually did it, and left the pole up!
That's the most work he's done for ages.........he's not exactly showjumper material (we got him on a weighbridge recently, at 13.3 hh he weighs 530 kilos, even Gandalf only weighs in at 554!) but I think it does him good to do something different once in a while.
Lovely day out today, lots of and fun with the ponies from the riding club at a local showjumping competition. St Antoine sur l'Isle this time, just up the road from St Seurin, but no movie connections and no famous Olympic medal winning horses buried there.........
Ali rode Nikos first, the Fjord cross, but got eliminated as he took exception to the scary red jump (just as he'd done with the first girl to ride him) and he absolutely refused to entertain the idea of going over it.....
But the 80cm class with Nahiade went really well, yes she had a couple down, but the main thing is she was calm and listening and there wasn't any tanking off like last time (even though she was in a Dutch gag, apparently the bitless might not be enough to control her in a public situation, they are more enlightened than most at our club - but bitless competing is still a step too far ). And they came second :-)
Spent a bit of time grazing Nahiade in hand at lunchtime and discovered that she likes Gingernuts, curry flavoured crisps and beer
The best round I saw all day was by Carole, Ali's instructor, on one of the livery horses Girlache, who had had a bad experience out jumping previously and was seriously scared at first, rearing and backing off, and she just sat there calmly and gave him the confidence to go and do the round, which he did, getting better and better as he went on
Nice venue but it was painfully obvious that the "home team" was rather too familiar with the courses and had been so well drilled so they pretty much swept the board....
And why do they feel the need to stick tiny kids (wearing spurs) on huge horses (wearing gag bits) all the time over here?
After the erm, interesting, time we had with Nahiade at the SJ competition, today I borrowed Ocarina's Dr Cook bitless to try with her during Ali's lesson. Have to say they were a bit sceptical up at the stables - will she be able to steer without a bit? What about the brakes? - but fair play to Carole for giving it a go. It appears that poor Nahiade has some sloppy dental work done in her previous home by someone with an electric rasp and that's why she's so sensitive in her mouth :-(
We noticed an immediate difference in her today, she still carries her head high, but nowhere near as much as she used to......
......and the real test, jumping, showed that she didn't feel the need to tank off after a jump (which she used to do at the club, albeit to a lesser degree than at that show), she stayed in a steady rhythm. And because she seemed less stressed, her roaring was much diminished :-)
And the steering and brakes worked ;-) So Carole is going to order her a bitless bridle of her own.
Ali said she could really feel the difference in stress levels. You can see what she used to get like in this pic from a few weeks ago:
Days like today really do make it all worthwhile :-)
I thought all this excitement would mean a high heart rate......but no, it was only 28 bpm!!
