Freya....

Whilst looking through the pics for Aliénor's post the other day, I got sidetracked looking at Freya's photos and I realised she had been sold before I started this blog, so here is her story.

I bought Freya (or Nancie de la Lande as she is known by the Haras) as a ride for me once Ali was big enough to ride Gandalf. She was an Anglo Arab x Percheron, seven years old at the time, had been bred by the chap who sold me Gandalf for someone to use as a hunter but the chap had sold her back to him as she was too slow. Here she is at her breeder's place, she's on the far left, her dam is on the far right

I shouldn't have bought her because I knew that "too slow" probably meant "difficult" and also at the time she was in foal. But I did, but obviously couldn't really get started until little Merlin put in an appearance in 2008. I just missed him being born, when I got there she still hadn't expelled the afterbirth and he was still a bit wet, but already on his feet:

He was a lovely little chap, but as he was by an Arab stallion I knew he probably wouldn't be chunky enough for me in the future so he was sold to the owner of the place they were at livery at the time. I got to help with his first few weeks and months though, it was a fantastic experience.......

Anyway, after he was weaned and Freya came home, the real fun started. I had already had a few issues with her to iron out, she had learned for instance that swinging her impressively large posterior at people usually got them to move out of her way and stopped them making her do stuff she didn't want to do. Like having fly spray/masks on and suchlike. But it didn't take her long to realise that I wouldn't be intimidated by her and she got used to these things. Turned out that there were a load more things she objected to once she came home though. Like wearing a saddle and going out into the big scarey wide world.......

It was like having a newly backed youngster. She spooked at everything, she didn't like dogs, cars, tractors, white lines on the road, level crossings, bicycles, speed bumps and babies. This last one was overcome fairly quickly as the SNO was tiny at the time! The first time we cantered, on the first hack I did with Ali, she had a serious go at bucking me off. She didn't manage it though.......I realised that "too slow" for hunting probably meant "left him eating dirt".......

But I continued to hack her out when I could. And sometimes she was great.....

.....but her shenanigans were worrying Ali,although Gandalf never attempted to copy her, and as I didn't have the time to devote to her training having had the SNO, I reluctantly sold her (to the people who had bought Merlin, as it turned out). She was a real character and I miss her......

And she taught me a lot, and it stood me in good stead for dealing with another mare with attitude and certain ideas of her own in the future.......

Aliénor's equine story so far......

I was watching Aliénor ride today and thinking how good she looked, she certainly rides better than I did at eleven, indeed some would say better than I do now. So I decided to do the proud mother thing and look out some photos that chart her equine progress.......I really wish there were some photos of me riding as a child, but my father used to abandon me at the stables gate without ever hanging around to watch.

As we bought our first digital camera just before Ali was born (which was about 4 times the size and weight of my current one, and could store a fraction of the number of photos, I still have it somewhere), she will have no such regrets. So here we go......

This is the first ever time she sat on a pony, aged 1:

We didn't have equines in those days, still lived in the UK. This was on holiday in October 2001.

A year later, she was very taken with this Shire at Northcote Heavy Horse Centre in Lincolnshire, she was happily leading him around!

By this time we had moved to France, and had a little bit of land, so the mother in law very helpfully bought Aliénor a pony......a two year old Shetland filly called Milka, who was trouble from day one.
Looks cute, doesn't she?

Well she wasn't. She thought she should be in charge. She was jealous of anyone that took my attention away from her (including poor Ali). She would rear and charge at anyone who went into her paddock apart from me. When I got Gandalf, she bullied him unmercifully. But she taught me a LOT!
And she was Ali's first pony......

Ali & Milka Nov 2004

However, even after I'd backed her it became obvious she could never be trusted off the lead rein so eventually we swapped her with a bloke from the circus for a 12 year old entire called Flecha. Who was ace. He was calm, friendly, once he'd got to know us he would let Ali do pretty much anything with him and we had a lot of fun.....

Ali & Flecha, May 2006

By this time, at the ripe old age of six, the girl was convinced she could ride the big boy.......and she could!!

She came off him once at that age and remains the only person to have fallen off Gandalf......to date.

She grows like a weed and was soon too big for Flecha so I found him a nice home with some people in the Charente who needed a companion for their Shetland (once he'd been gelded). By this time, I had bought another horse, a Percheron x Anglo Arab called Freya and Ali and I started riding out together. The first hack we did is something I'll never forget (not least because Freya tried to buck me off)

September 2008

Sadly I had to sell Freya, because she needed a lot of work and I didn't have the time, due to the arrival of the SNO the year before. So we went back to sharing Big G and I decided to get a baby horse so I wouldn't be inheriting someone else's mistakes again. When Skyfaxa arrived as a 6 month old foal, Ali helped me with her right from the start.

November 2009

And then a few months later I saw Kinna, and she looked so sad I had to bring her home, so Ali's future horse arrived.

February 2010

At this point I thought we had the full contingent of equines, but as it happened, I was wrong, in April last year the Naughty Nordic Princess arrived, and the rest, as they say, is history......