Fete du Cheval

Went to the Fete du Cheval on Sunday at the Western Horse Farm where I had my lesson last year. They had a load of stuff organised, a rallye in the morning that I would have loved to have done, and all afternoon there were demostrations of different disciplines. Jo asked me to go along because she was doing a showjumping demo on Socianda and I had to do the commentary in French. Luckily she'd written it all down for me in English so all I had to do was translate. Don't have any pics of the jumping as I was holding a microphone, but Socianda did brilliantly and jumped up to 1m15

After that we had a Western Trail demo, which as far as I could tell was TREC in a Western saddle

This lovely horse was a 21 year old Anglo who did everything in just a headcollar, and his rider didn't need spurs, maybe because she didn't feel the need to do the whole macho cowboy thing? Or is that just me being unfair on the boys.....?

After that we had a dressage demo, this rider was apparently runner up in the Championat d'Aquitaine, she did a freestyle to music,

Then there was a lovely team of Bretons...

...and finally some Western reining. This is Frederick, who runs the place, on his stallion Smart which apparently won the National Championships last year.

I actually quite like his riding, apart from this:

And there was another chap on a gorgeous palomino QH

His sliding stops were a bit less dramatic

....and that mane looked fab doing the spins, although to be honest I don't really see the point of doing that to a horse either.

Then we had to go home because the SNO was reaching her sell-by date, which is a shame as the dressage lady was going to do a garrocha demo later in the day, would like to have seen that.......and they also had some fun barrel racing, and Socianda came second beating all those Western horses. Stewart took some video, it looks so much fun:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsdivu_jo-barrel-racing-for-fun-at-western-show-july-12_sport?start=3

Trip to Beaumont

Today we took Seraphina up to Beaumont with us for our driving lesson to see what she would think of the carriages.

She took everything in her stride and was very curious, especially about the donkey!

We followed along behind the carriages absolutely fine.....

...and we even had a peek at the TREC PTV course

Our first driving lesson.....

Had a great morning today up at the Centre Equestre in Beaumont (where we did the Trec last year), we hitched a ride to Tess and Caitlin's driving lesson, and Ali had a go too.


We harnessed up the ponies and set off in convoy......to the local Intermarché car park! There's a nice empty bit at the far end where Isabelle set up some cones and soon had eveyone weaving round them......

Can you believe this gorgeous pony was sent for slaughter, but Isabelle has contacts with the local horse butchers and they asked her if she'd take it as it was too nice to go for meat!?

A great experience, will definitely be going back for more lessons, Ali is doing a competition next weekend being "groom" for Caitlin!!