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......

Our first endurance competition

Had an interesting day out yesterday, took Gandalf and Seraphina to their first endurance competition. We were only doing the baby class, just 10kms, but it was a good start.

We arrived in sunshine, despite the grim weather forecast and decided to get straight on with it. Except we had no idea really of what to do. So I tracked down Luc, the orgaiser and asked him for a quick beginner's guide to endurance.  He said we needed to get our number and vet card, so we did that. Was also reassured to be given a map, I always get a bit jumpy if I don't have one, it's all those TREC competitions, I suppose.....

Then we had to fetch the horses and take them for a pre race vetting. Having looked at the other horses there (and they were everywhere, tied up to trailers, being saddled, charging off down the field, being walked round in circles with rugs on....) we decided ours looked a bit out of place.......so did some of the other competitors, evidently, given the stares we were getting. Most of the other horses looked like this:

......ours are somewhat fatter and hairier :-)

Anyway, we saw the vets, they measured the horses' resting heart rate (Gandalf's was 32 beats per minute), checked their eyes etc and we had to trot them up. G wasn't too keen on this, and nor was I, good job they didn't need to measure my heart rate afterwards. My dear friend Jo was there to snap me actually running, not a pretty sight....

Anyway, after all that, and some lengthy discussions with Mr Face Like a Slapped Arse head vet because we don't have enough vet stamps on the horses' passports, it was decided we could run, but probably wouldn't get an official result, due to this incorrect paperwork. Fairly typical in this country really, they get very agitated about incorrect paperwork. We also failed to provide copies of our medical certificates. Because we didn't know we needed them. When I mentioned this, and also pointed out that as you have to have a medical certificate before you can have a competition licence, and that without a competition licence you cannot enter the damn competition in the first place, so producing another copy of that certificate is therefore superfluous to requirements, I got the gallic shrug and the "it's the rules" speech.......

So, suitably chastened,  off we went back to the trailer to saddle the horses. Then we went to the starting gate, gave them more bits of paper, got the bits of paper back, then we could finally set off.

I was hoping to have a great action shot to post here of us charging along from the start but sadly my photographer was somewhat occupied helping a poor girl who had fallen off and landed face down on the peak of her helmet which had given her a nasty head wound and a broken nose to boot. And there were entirely no medical staff available whatsoever. Nor was there any urgency to summon them, and until they did finally arrive, some two hours later, my poor friends Tanya and Jo were left to look after the girl......

They probably didn't have the right paperwork to deal with that kind of situation.....

Anyway, Ali and I had a great run, Gandalf was a bit unhappy with some of the stony tracks and had to take it steady, but he made up for it on the better ground and we managed to get to the 5km mark in exactly 30 minutes. We needed to aim for 10/12km/h, and I knew they'd go quicker on the way back so was feeling quite pleased with our efforts when a couple of serious endurance types came charging past us on skinny Arabs wearing enough Lycra to enter the Tour de France. By the time I'd got the camera out, they were mere dots on the horizon....

Undeterred (they were probably doing the 40 or 60km ride anyway), we carried on and the horses did indeed speed up on the way back to the start, so we finished in 55 minutes.

Then it was more papers to hand in at the end and back to the trailer (no photos of us heroically cantering to the finish either due to the continued non arrival of the Pompiers to deal with the faller) to take their tack off and walk them round for half an hour before the final vet check. Gandalf was not impressed with this, being used to coming back from TREC rides and being allowed to stand still and eat hay. This, however, apparently does not help with the optimum heart rate so walking round in circles with a (too small) rug on it was.

By this point the rain had decided to arrive, as had finally the Pompiers, who then proceeded to empty out everything in the trailer to be able to finally get to the poor girl for some medical treatment. So we trudged round in the rain to cool the horses off, let them have some water, then 25 mins after our arrival it was back to the vets for more checks. Gandalf's heart rate was down to 40 bpm, which is quite good, apparently. It was lower than Seraphina's, you can't underestimate these old boys......

So it was a bit of a steep learning curve, we got wet, got told off and didn't get an official result, but I think I might like to try that again sometime.......

Speed merchants....

My horse really seems to be enjoying this whole endurance speed lark, went for a hack with my friends who wanted to do  a slower ride yesterday and he was jogging about impatiently for a lot of the time, you can see from this pic I tried to take of them he wasn't very still!

So in the end I resorted to letting him bomb off ahead, then canter back to them, several times, so we ended up doing 9kms......they didn't!

We stopped to see the heavy horses, the babies are very cute, and curious...

The poor old dog is having a hard time keeping up with all this fast exercise, she's used to us ambling along gossiping and taking pics of the countryside, not hammering about at 10kms and hour, and she insists on coming with me when I'm cycling for the 5x50 Challenge,  (day 33 and I'm still going strong, no one is more surprised than me!) which isn't too bad at SNO speed, but when I'm on my own I have to wait for her to catch up, then when we get back she collapses in a heap puffing like a steam train!

Doesn't stop her looking at me like I've kicked her if I leave her behind on my longer cycles though ;-)