Soggy day!

Too Ali up to Beaumont yesterday for the day, one of the great things about Isabelle is that she doesn't cancel if it's wet unlike many of the stables we've been to, the French seem to generally hold the belief that they'll dissolve in the rain.......

So she did some jumping practise, with a ready made water jump!

She rode one of the smaller horses, Mikado, who was a bit opinionated to begin with.....

....but he soon settled and they did some nice jumping

....although he did get a  bit carried away!

She loved her day, we aim to go back once a fortnight, it's about an hour's drive away but worth it as they are great up there, here's their site. We're going to do a Christmas TREC there next month, really looking forward to it.....

Riding somewhere different....

We went to Derbyshire for our annual holiday this half term and I booked the usual hack out with friends. I got to ride the usual draft cross, this one was called Prince and was 17hh but was lovely and forward going......

We rode through some stunning scenery, but it was a bit chilly up on the hillside. Got to go for a little canter, Prince's legs were so long it was like cantering in slow motion after Gandalf!

When we got back, the kids had a little lead rein ride, my mate John rode the big horse I'd been on, here he is next to his son on a Shetland!

Éowyn rode a pony called Star and kept asking if they could trot (which they couldn't). Bit tame for her I suppose.......

A lively ride!

Rode Gandalf and Fina down to Tanya's today as they'll be staying with her whilst we're away. Had to take the Small Naughty One with us, and she wanted to do everything that Ali did.....

Cantering......

....jumping ditches

but she did draw the line at jumping the log on the TREC course from the other week. Fina tackled it somewhat faster than Ali was expecting, hence the expression!!

Love 'em!

Horse Agility

Have been investigating doing some online agility competitions, the International Horse Agility Club runs them on their site here: http://www.thehorseagilityclub.com/page ... ility.html

Lots of it is what we do for TREC and Label Loisir anyway, and as an added bonus there are no turnout marks!!! Bit disappointed to only finish 6th in the Interdressage Happy Hacker class, largely due to low marks for turnout, especially as I was the only one to actually do some hacking in my video.......

Anyway, had a practise session with Sky today, she surprised me by refusing to go under a curtain to begin with, she couldn't work out how to get her head under it.....

Eventually she decided to go under, but really rushed, she obviously wasn't happy about it. So we did it again, and again and again until she was happy to walk calmly through

The flag posed fewer problems...

...and the ball none at all!

Cowgirl Ali

As Ali didn't want Kinna to be left out, we did her photo for the calendar yesterday.

She was very good, didn't mind the (rather heavy) Western saddle at all. I even dug out an old hackamore bridle to finish the look.

Kinna looked very small under all that....

Inevitably, Éowyn wanted a ride......

So that's both babies backed then, what shall we do next?

Spotty Indian Pony

Éowyn's turn for the calendar shoot today, thought Sky would look the part as an Indian pony. So she's an unbacked two year old, but that didn't matter!

Sky was better behaved than the child, unsurprisingly.......

Anarchy in the.....south west of France?

So it's that time of year again, time to think about photos for our annual Horsetales Charity calendar. Some of us want to do the fancy dress theme again and for the Naughty Nordic Princess there is really only one look to go with her mane and her non conformist attitude:

All that work with fly spray desensitisation meant she didn't even mind being graffitied - unlike Aliénor who hated having her hair and makeup done, although she's got the moody punk expression nailed.......and wants to keep the studded belt!