TREC again

It's the school holidays so that means Ali's doing a stage at the riding club. Yesterday was all about TREC and as I've apparently done more of it than Carole, she asked me to stay and help.

The girls didn't even get their bum in the saddle all morning, they had a lesson on how to read a map then they took the horses into the sand school for some practise at the in hand elements of the PTV bit. Have to say the horses were a bit nonplussed by this, I suppose they have been conditioned only to be ridden in the school......

Nahiade was great about the tarp and the polework, but getting her to understand we wanted her to trot in had took a while, she had no idea how to do that! I really do take my horses for granted when it comes to groundwork......but she got there in the end and Ali managed to jump in hand without ending up on the floor like I did once at a competition :-/

And for a long old beastie, she can do the maniabilité surprisingly well

We even took them up the track a ways to find some slopes to use for the up and down hill bits. Think they appreciated the change of scene and the chance for a snack :-)

Then after lunch it was up to the big field for ridden practise. Again, Naihade, being a creature of habit, got a bit revved up as she thought she was going to do a round of showjumping but instead she had to do some things at speed (slalom, tree trunk, L bend) and slow down again for others (immobility, S bend). You could see her thinking about it. Will do her good.......

As we didn't have a long, light pole to make a gate like the one we're used to, we opted for the rope version which you do get at some comps. So Carole says, "right, how do you do this, Helen?". Er, as it turns out I have no idea!!! So we had a lot of fun trying but the main problem was the horses being wary of the rope cos it could be an electric fence after all.......

Ali's face pretty much sums it up here!

Carole wants me to help her organise a TREC comp up there in the autumn and the first thing I'm going to suggest is that we make a proper gate with a pole!!!

But of course I had to figure it out so today I got on the boy and gave it a go. If you have to keep the rope in the same hand like you do with the barrier, then it's jolly tricky......

Must check the rules on that!!

Cross country day tomorrow, obviously not going along to teach but to learn.......  :-)