Our first driving lesson.....

Had a great morning today up at the Centre Equestre in Beaumont (where we did the Trec last year), we hitched a ride to Tess and Caitlin's driving lesson, and Ali had a go too.


We harnessed up the ponies and set off in convoy......to the local Intermarché car park! There's a nice empty bit at the far end where Isabelle set up some cones and soon had eveyone weaving round them......

Can you believe this gorgeous pony was sent for slaughter, but Isabelle has contacts with the local horse butchers and they asked her if she'd take it as it was too nice to go for meat!?

A great experience, will definitely be going back for more lessons, Ali is doing a competition next weekend being "groom" for Caitlin!!
 

Saying goodbye to Seraphina

Went down to Rochelle's in the Landes today to see Seraphina for the last time before she goes to her new life in Texas. As we arrived, Mademoiselle was playing up nicely  for the trainer,Odile, and refusing to stand still to be mounted......

Might have had something to do with the huge horse in the field opposite , one of the horses owned by the house buyers who has moved in early! Eventually, she behaved herself and Odile took her into the school. She has bags of energy and was super fast to start with as you can see in this video
But she settled down after a while and started listening to Odile, as you can see here

She's such a pretty girl

We shall miss her!

Great session with Chezza today.....

After being a star at the rallye on Sunday, I did some more with Ches today. We can now stop without touching his mouth at all, and we can stand still without fidgeting.....he is just starting to realise that he doesn't have to fight the bit all the time, today I really felt like he was "listening" to my hands for the first time. I think he has been hauled about by his mouth in the past which is why he keeps trying to snatch the reins, he always puts his head straight down whenever he stops and it's become a habit now, even when you have little or no contact....


Here's a little video We did some walk trot transitions too and he wasn't too bad at those either.

Then I made Tanya get on and he was a good boy for her too, another video
He doesn't like the round pen much though, I think he finds it pointless, he's very forward going out on a hack and seems generally more interested in what's going on. So we are going to do more rides and rallyes with him as he seemed to enjoy himself on Sunday!

After that I did a bit of groundwork, seeing if he's do a turn on the forehand for the Interdressage test, he does strange things with his feet sometimes, at one point he was standing with his hind legs crossed like he does in this video

He does have a funny way of going sometimes, he seems to drag his hinds at the trot and really rolls his hips from side to side, maybe it's the way he's built? The long back and short legs......

Here's a video of him freeschooling.

Anyway, he's a funny little character, and I think he's going to make a nice little cheval de randonée, he's so cool out and about, today on the campsite Tanya's dad was burning a load of tree branches and using a chainsaw and he never turned a hair.........

Love him.....

Our first "rallye"......

Tanya and I took the boys for a lovely day out today, despite the terrible weather forecast we didn't even get wet!


There was a 21km or a 28km ride, we did the 21, but had to cheat (luckily they gave us a map) as having been overtaken by everyone we realised if we didn't cut a few corners we'd never get home !!

Chester was a very good boy, the first couple of times people went past he was keen to follow them, but after that he realised that wasn't allowed and soon settled down.

Some pics:

Loads more pictures here.
 
We did a fair bit of trotting and even had a bit of a canter (but I had to stop and go back as my hip flask fell out of my pocket!), Ches was very good and stopped when I wanted him to and even stood still for me to get back on!




So it was a great outing for our first "rallye", hopefully the first of many.....

Sunny hack...

Went for a nice hack today, with Gandalf's old field mate Gimy, and the mare Gim lives with now, Jinelle. Gandalf had a bit of a spring in his step, was pleased to see Gimy, and Gim showed his usual enthusiasm for seeing Gandalf by pulling his tail........

Beautiful day, we are so lucky to have countryside like this to ride in......

Spring seems to be here.....

Groomed the girls today, it's like a blizzard of hair at the moment, had a dicey moment getting them out of the field, Maverick didn't want them to go without him
Took them into the little paddock to do some "standing still and not stuffing your face" practise, needs a bit more work, I feel!!

Got there in the end.....

Toying with the idea of doing an Interdressage showing class this month, there's one for youngsters, if this weather continues should be able to bath them!
Flies were a nightmare today, have got the spray out, they were both a bit unsure about it at first. And of course last year's masks are too small, need to order some more.......

Thailand

Just got back from ten days in Thailand. Amazing holiday......

We saw some animals that you don't see in Europe much. Like elephants. And tigers.

The elephants were fantastic. We went for a ride first of all, somewhat slower than the horses, with a swinging stride......

......but that wasn't the best bit.
They took off their saddles and we got back on.....to take them for a bath in the river. Brilliant fun!!

Here's a video. The elephant Ali was on was trained to get rid of its riders!

Then the next day we went to see some tigers. They are kept by the monks in a temple and are raised by hand so are very tame, although you still have to be careful around them and follow the rules! We got to take one for a walk

Then the kids went off to play with the baby tigers and feed them.....

There's a lot of controversy about this place, I have read that the tigers are drugged, not fed properly, left out in the hot sun for hours........I have to say that we saw no evidence of this. Apparently it all started because some abandoned tigers ended up at the monks' temple and they took them in. Now they breed them and hand rear them so people can get close to them. We spoke to a couple of volunteers who work there and they had no concerns about the welfare of the animals. Yes, the tourists pay to see them but the money goes on taking care of them......

In fact I was pleasantly surprised how well animals in Thailand in general were cared for, I was expecting far worse. It's a Buddhist country though, so maybe not surprising. There are lots of cats and dogs around, they all follow the food for scraps, even on the beach but they were never agressive and a couple of times I ended up with a cat on my lap!