Relationships

Have been thinking a lot recently about how to make my relationship with my horses better. Take Kinna's recent problems, the first time I went to see her after she got sore, she didn't want me anywhere near her at first, she didn't trust me not to hurt her so I had to give her the choice to walk away and after trying for about 20 minutes to get a headcollar on her, I rethought it, and just went for a leadrope round the neck. Even this wasn't pleasant for her, she still wouldn't let me touch her head to put cream on, but she did let me treat her legs and under her tail.

Usually of course  I have daily contact with her so would it have been easier if she'd stayed at home?  She clearly didn't want poor Sarah anywhere near her but then, she doesn't know Sarah like she knows Ali and me.

I have just read a book by Joe Camp called Horses and Stress. He and his wife came late to horse ownership and because he never had any preconceived ideas on how to do it, he questioned everything and chose what he sees as the best way to keep his horses. So he keeps them out all the time in a herd, moving about, barefoot, unrugged, just like mine. One of the things he says is "Time in the saddle, in the arena, and on the trail are important. But I believe the most important time is in the pasture. Just hanging out. It has done wonders for us, and our horses". He does this thing called "No Agenda Time", more on that on his website, which is essentially being with a horse and doing nothing to it, expecting nothing of it, and waiting for the horse to choose to come and interact with you.

We all talk about the importance of groundwork, training, leadership etc, but before all of that we don't take time simply to be with a horse. We expect things, we need to do things, achieve something, teach them something, practise doing something, whatever.

Today something cool happened when I was down at Tanya's cleaning the paddocks. Her little pony, Polo, has real issues with being caught. He doesn't like adults, he doesn't always want to be caught even by his rider, he is very wary of strangers and often of people he does know. He can't really deal with any kind of pressure. For months he  avoided me, except for when I arrived with his food. More recently he has consented to let me go up to him, but hasn't exactly been happy and relaxed with that. Mostly I just need to check his fly mask, pick out bits of stray hay in it, that kind of thing. I have just got on with things around him, tried to put no pressure on him and leave him alone and I see him watching me out of the corner of his eye a lot of the time.

But today, he chose to do something he's never done before. He actually asked me to do something for him. After I'd picked the hay out of his mask, I scratched him on his wither like I usually do and then he took a few steps forward. I thought he was going to head off to the hay but her stopped in front of me and looked back. I get this a lot from Tari and with her it means "scratch my bum". So I scratched Polo's bum and he pulled the "that's good" face, the first time I have ever seen him do that.

Result :-)

First TREC of the year

Yesterday was fun. We went up to Beaumont again for a TREC special PTV competition. Ali got to ride Sunny, Tamzin's big bay horse and she also did a round on Ches. We got there a bit early so we had a sneak preview of the course, to show Ras, Tamzin's 5 year old Arab, that nothing was going to eat him......

Then Isabelle and the rest of the team showed up so we got the horses ready and the competition started. Tanya went first on Chester. He did his usual ambling along, tried to eat the gate, got his head down during the immobility and generally did the least amount of work possible.....he woke up enough at the end to actually jump the hedge though!

Polo went next and was fine, unsurprising given his gymnkhana background.....

and given his size the low branch wasn't exactly a challenge!

 

 

Then it was Ali's turn on Sunny. He is 16.3hh and not exactly skinny, so it's a lot of horse to hold together. There was an interesting moment at the gate opening.......here she is saying "what do I do now?!"

She got it closed in the end without dropping it though, somewhat unorthodox technique....

Unfortunately, the low branch was a bit too low for Sunny....

But he jumped beautifully, I think Ali might have enjoyed that bit!

She also managed to get on him from the ground, she's very bendy.....

Little Ras was funny, he did fine with most of it, then suddenly decided the gate was out to get him and shot off across the course, I had to dive out of the way after I'd taken this pic!

Then Ali did a round on Ches, who decided he was going to be scared of the carriage that came trotting up the road and leapt out of the middle of the ruelle he was supposed to be crossing.

So Ali came 6th on him, Hollie was 4th and Ali came third on Sunny. The winner was a girl on a Merens riding in just a headcollar, she was brilliant!

Looking forward to the next one......would love to take Kinna next time to see how she copes.

Snow? What snow?

So it's been snowing in a lot of places, apparently. People keep posting pics of themselves doing cool stuff in it, like this from some friends ooop north in Normandy:

But here? A light dusting of snow overnight on Thursday. Already melting by the morning. But elsewhere in the Dordogne apparently they had a good amount of the stuff, which meant that naturally all the school buses had to be cancelled in the whole department.....then we had lots of rain. Lots and lots of rain. Enough to flood the concrete in front of the stable. And the stable itself (luckily the hay in there is on pallets). Still, the ducks are happy at least.....

Anyway, last night we had a load more rain, followed by a bit more snow. But again, the roads were clear, so Ali and I decided to go up to the stables and get the horses out. The sun even came out :-)

Found a nice fallen tree in the woods for the girls (and dogs!)

By the time we got back, most of the snow had melted though and now we're back to mud, mud and more mud (and flooding). Ah well.......such is winter.

Christmas TREC

This year's Beaumont Christmas TREC competition at the weekend didn't quite go according to plan......we had entered as a team of four, but the day before we got the bad news that one of the tow vehicles wouldn't be ready in time so we had to decide which two could go. One of them had to be me, because, let's face it, I'm the only one who can actually read a map.......

So in the end, we loaded up Gandalf and Polo for the trip and everyone else came along to watch. I had managed to secure the services of a Shetland for the SNO, which she thought was rather marvellous, especially when her father, who was supposed to be keeping an eye on her, let her off the leadrein......

...unfortunaltely, as there was a record number of teams this year, they didn't have a spare horse for Ali to ride, even the mules had been pressed into service, so she went round in the car with Tanya.

It rained all morning, until it was time to go, which was better than I was expecting. We set off down the slippery path into the woods, and very quickly caught up with the Shetland group shepherded by some disgruntled looking adults in big waterproof macs - and Mike, who had already relinquished control of Éowyn's pony. Which meant that as we passed the ponies (the one at the back tried to kick poor Gandalf, no wonder he's not keen on small ponies), hers was at the front and tried to trot off after us. She of course though this was great fun, so we had to wait until one of the unhappy helpers caught hold of her before we could carry on.

At the first checkpoint, predictably, Hollie forgot about unclipping her airjacket and had to do some undignified hopping with one foot still in the stirrup until she'd detatched herself, fortunately it didn't go off. The boys were happy to have a munch on some hay - until the Shetlands turned up and Gandalf thought it would be prudent to get out of there sharpish.....

On we went (still no rain) until the second checkpoint which consisted of a gazebo in a field. Gandalf, safe in the knowledge that gazebos are not, in fact, horse eating monsters, walked right on under it and attempted to help himself to the bread on the table......he nearly got away with it too, as I was momentarily distracted by one of the mules attempting to roll with its rider still aboard. The boys were both quite interested in the mules, actually......

Then we set off on the third leg of the course which took us back towards the town of Beaumont. At one point I saw from the map that we had to cross a main road, so I'd got Tanya to take Choccy away in the car. Turns out I needn't have worried, as we had to go UNDER the road in a not very inviting looking, low, narrow tunnel!

So I got off, and the boy breathed in, and calmly followed me through. Love him. Polo followed us and Hollie didn't even need to get off, just as well as if the air jacket had gone off in the tunnel, we might have had a problem getting her out......

Next, on up into the town itself and we rounded a corner to see.......some steps

I double checked the maps, but it was indeed the right way, so after a moment's hesitition (I think he was figuring out just where to put his feet), Gandalf went on up, and as soon as Polo saw him put a foot on the first step, he scrambled up ahead of us. Nice to see that all the strange stuff I do with him pays off :-)

We arrived at the last checkpoint after the usual wiggle through the little cobbled streets in Beaumont and we even managed to arrive by the right one. Stopped off for some wine and excellent pepper sausage, then headed back to the stables.

After the TREC was the traditional slap up 5 course meal with extra chocolates, mostly hoovered up by the SNO. Lots of people sitting in an indoor sand school wearing Santa outfits.

And finally the prize giving.....and we came 5th out of 12 teams, happy with that :-)

Hydrotherapy

As it was ridiculously hot this morning, having finished the poo picking by 9.30 we decided to take the horses for a dip in the river.

Hollie and Ali wanted to really go for it and had their swimming kit on, I didn't bother as G is not generally a fan of the wet stuff. Turns out this was a bit of a mistake, as he went much further in than I expected and I got bootfuls of water......

Polo was OK in the water up to a certain point, but Seraphina the water baby really went for it! Think they all had fun....

Choccy enjoyed it too!

Don't try this at home.......

Was watching Horse and Country TV last night and Monty Roberts and Kelly Marks were doing a desensitising demo. There was a lot of warning people not to try this with their horses etc, but we ignored that this afternoon.......

Having done a lot of work previously with them, I knew Gandalf and Seraphina wouldn't have a problem with the whole flag thing.

Or the standing up thing (I had a go at this but am too fat and old to actually manage to stand up so my glamorous assistant did it instead)

Polo and Sorcier, on the other hand, weren't letting it anywhere near!!

We went back to a somewhat smaller flag for Polo but he still wasn't keen......

.......and I spent a while walking around the old boys' field carrying that same tiny flag, wth Gandalf following me everywhere, before Soso would even stop long enough to look at it. Have left it wedged in a fence post to see if he gets a bit more used to it.......

It takes time and patience but I reckon it's worth it, last weekend's jumping competition was very windy and so many horses refused to go anywhere near the judges becuase they had a flappy tent over their table......but Seraphina didn't turn a hair.

Busy horsey weekend

After two weeks of not riding, I finally got out and about a bit this weekend. On Friday evening I took Ali and Hollie out for an amble along the river. First time Gandalf and Chester had been out for a while, at the first canter they both did some little bucks before charging off.......
Then on Saturday we took Fina and Polo up to the club at Bergerac to do some jumping practise. He has been running out and getting eliminated at jumping competitions so we wanted to recreate the whole show experience and see if with Louise's help Hollie could get him back on track.

He usually does this

So Louise got Hollie to really get him going in front of her leg and listening to her. Once he realised she meant business, he got on with the job. Shame about the spook at the end! She got back on and finished the course though.

Seraphina was all over the place, mind most definitely NOT on the job, she had spent the night with Sorcier, and was  in season and being very mareish.....so Ali had to work at it too!

Then we went for a nice hack this morning, Sorcier for the first time in weeks, wearing his new Easyboot Epics, didn't seem to bother him at all. The girls wanted to hooley off all the time, but Soso was supposed to only be walking, and Mike was with us too. We had to keep Fina away from the others as she was in full on flirt mode, which involved flashing her bum at the boys, then squealing and trying to kick them when they showed some interest......all four boys did some willy waving though, they're still interested even though none of them has the required equipment! I rode Ches in the bosal as the strap on his Myler bit has broken, and had no problems with the brakes. He did want to hooley off with the others, but when told not to, he went into power walk mode!

Apart from the hormonal mare it was a lovely hack, not too hot, bit of sun. Map and pics here (can't work out how to embed Everytrail trips......)

and when we got back, Seraphina jumped 80cms! :-)

Another soggy CSO

Another SJ comp today, another soaking...... :roll:

It had rained all night, it rained all morning, we were very careful where we parked the horseybego as we wanted to be able to get it out of there again, even got shouted at by an irate little Frenchman for being in the way of his chemin (we weren't).

The arena was waterlogged and the sand was very deep, so the horses were not impressed. In the first class, a 50cm preparatoire (clear round class) Polo decided he really didn't want to jump at all and Ali did what has to be the slowest round I've ever seen but she was clear for the first time ever so she got a rosette and was happy.

Then the second class was a club 4 vitesse, there was nothing speedy about that either, Hollie did really well to get Polo round after he put in a few more stops, and Ali just had one down. So she was second and Hollie third. The winner was an adult, so I reckon they did pretty well.......

Got a vid of Ali's second class, you can see how wet it was! And how Fina wanted to get out of there every time she headed to the gate......

Some of the other competitors didn't take things steady at all and a fair few ended up with a lot of that sand decorating their clothes having come off, as did poor Elodie on Peter who hit the deck when he put a stop in....and one poor girl came off and was out cold when her horse spooked at something, so the pompiers were called. Don't really understand why the French always have a bloke with a dodgy disco at their shows but no medical staff on stand by...... :|

More pics here and Tanya took a load with her posh camera, so hopefully more to follow.......