New Ambitions!

Haven't posted for a while because we haven't done much recently, apart from slog up the hill through the mud in the rain to see the horses every day, thanks to the Great British Winter this year being not very cold but very, very wet. Not that it has bothered the horses at all.......

The only place we've been able to escape the weather is in an indoor school. Sadly not one anywhere near here, but in Berkshire, at the Ambitions Equestrian Centre, where a friend is a regular and where they decided they'd like a little go at horseback archery.

So in the Christmas holidays we wandered over with our kit and got some of the kids on the pony club camp to have a go. Some of them were a bit reluctant, largely because they were scared the bow would break so we had a session on foot first to get them used to the bow and how to shoot it.

A further complication was that none of the horses had so much as seen a bow before, so we spent a fair bit of time introducing them to new sights and sounds too.....

Then there was the biggest hurdle, getting the kids to let go of the reins........distraction is the best way to do this, I find.....

Most of the ponies were great about the whole thing, any of them that were a bit unsure I got Ali to ride as some of the anxiety was coming from the riders....but as the session progressed, they got more confident :-)

A week later, we were back and by the end of this day's work, we had some of the kids shooting from a canter....

And a couple of weeks later, we did a Friday night session for the adults.

Apparently they want us to do more at half term. Better get on with doing my BHAA Coaching qualification then!

Horse archery

Just got back from 3 weeks in France (where we no longer have wifi at the house, which is my excuse for not blogging for ages), supposedly on holiday but actually ended up on a kind of extended horse archery training course.....as you do!

This is a new FFE discipline and John at our old club has taken it up big time. As they had a competition planned for the final weekend of our stay, we decided it'd be fun to have a go. Ali of course got to ride Kinna, and as she's been doing field archery for a few years, turned out to be some good at it.

I on the other hand, got totally thrashed by everyone in Club 3 (the easiest level, all at the walk), even the kids on a lead rein. But it really was a lot of fun :-)

We went for several training sessions, including one where I managed to fall off Nanou, she only has 2 speeds, plodding along like a donkey or full speed racehorse and I ended up swearing (and laughing) a lot as she tanked off up the run.....

Needless to say, I can only actually hit the target when she's in donkey mode ;-)

John has done a really good job with Kinns, she totally gets what you have to do and doesn't bat an eyelid at any of it.....

Didn't want to come home.......

One last TREC...

As some of you will know, we are heading back to the UK at Christmas, dog, (most of the) horses and all, so yesterday was our last French TREC competition. Fitting that it was the Beaumont Christmas TREC which was the first competition we ever did here four years ago.....

This time we went with Carole and John from the club and Ali took Kinna for her first ever competition. We didn't have a particularly early start time but in true French style, we still managed to be half an hour late. Nobody minded though, so after some strong coffee, second breakfast and a quick bit of map copying, we donned our tinsel and off we went.

The weather was perfect, sunny and not too cold and for once we didn't get rained on. We managed to get our average speed about right because Carole's Arab, Nadjma, wanted to rush off thinking she was doing endurance and poor old G, despite wanting to keep up with her, just couldn't do the speed, especially at canter, so they had to wait for us every so often which meant we didn't lose any marks for going too fast.....

But he still had a nice spring in his step, even though I'd ridden him the 15kms up to the club last Friday and he'd been out on a hack with Kinns the day before.

Kinna was ace, she seems to really enjoy hacking out. Carole reckons she could be good at endurance as she doesn't seem to stress about much so her heart rate shouldn't be too high. She will be staying here in France at the club as Ali is already too tall for her really and Carole is just the right size :-)

Chox came with us too and really enjoyed herself, especially as when she looked longingly at the snacks on the checkpoints people took pity on her and slipped her bits of the charcuterie....

Those last three pics were taken by the professional photographer and really show the colours well, my little camera doesn't unfortunately, although I was surprised that this pic I took whilst cantering came out quite well:

After a few wine stops, or checkpoints as they are usually known, we got back to the stables for the main event, the slap up meal in the indoor school. Posh this year though as there were tablecloths and everything! In the absence of the SNO who had opted to go to the Bordeaux Christmas market with Mamie, Aliénor did her trick of hoovering up all the free chocolates and then not wanting her dinner.

And then it was the prize giving. Tamzin and her friend won the fancy dress prize for their angelic look.......

....and our team came.......second out of 8 teams/individuals in the Club competition, really pleased with that :-) Especially as if you look at the team only comp, we were first out of 3.

Busy old weekend.....

This weekend was the long-awaited forum get together down here. Jane hosted it up in Bonneville as she has a gite for everyone to stay in. The usual suspects all came along, plus some of the girls from oooop north in Brittany. We took Gandalf and Sky along, Tess brought her little Pottock pony, Kyriane, and we had Jane's two, Maverick and Ocarina. But not all in the same place at the same time, as Ocarina hated the girls on sight and they weren't allowed anywhere near "her" man......

So Saturday morning kicked off with two separate hacks going out, the teenagers (Ali & Caitlin) going out for a somewhat rapid ride, followed by me in the car.....

...and the others at a more sedate pace. As the first hack went so quickly, I was able to nip back and catch the others in action too (OK, so a lot of that action was ponies diving for the grass)

The rainy start to the day gave way to a bit of sun after lunch, and after a few more people had arrived we spent the afternoon messing about trying treeless saddles (one of our members is a rep for Trekker saddles) and sitting around eating cake and drinking tea......

Everyone wanted to have a go on Gandalf......

even the SNO!

Saturday night involved a lot of curry and wine.....including this bottle purchased especially for me ;-)

Then on Sunday, after I'd had to be up at half six to send Ali off to her competition with the club, we spent the morning with our EE instructor giving the odd lesson or two.....

 ...but only getting a little bit wet.

Meanwhile, in St Antoine sur l'Isle, Ali had been putting all that soaring practise to good use on Nahiade and came 6th in both of her classes.

Not entirely sure why they felt the need to include a paddling pool under this jump, but she clearly wasn't bothered by it!

Ali was pleased with her performance, chiefly because Nahiade didn't feel the need to go charging off with her as has happened at previous competitions. And also because when Carole, the instructor, rode her (albeit in a higher class), she only managed 8th.....

 

Some rain fell out of the sky that afternoon though, the paddling pool must have been full! Back at the meet up, we hid indoors, then went out for a drive to collect Ali at the club after the comp and were glad we'd decided not to ride the horses home that day.....

 

So the guests offered to ride them back on Monday morning, when it was dull but dry. I followed in the car (again) to show them some of the tracks and got a couple of nice pics

 

 

All the horses were good, although Sky insisted on seeing if she could get her rider to take her eye off the ball long enough to get her head down to the grass. Business as usual, then......

 

We did kinda miss Chester though, as he went to a new home last week :-(

 

So now I'm back to normality with a heap of soggy washing from Sunday and a kitten who clearly felt dreadfully neglected over the weekend desperate to be in my face all the time ;-)

 

Yeah, sure, I'll help out.......

Have spent so much time banging on about the new girl I haven't had time to blog about last weekend - our riding club's first competition of the year. Being a generally helpful sort of person I immediately volunteered my services (and Mike's, whether he wanted them volunteered or not) to help out in whatever way I could. Clearly having no idea just how much there would be to do........

So I spent the weekend (and the Friday before) marking out arenas, getting rained on, carrying showjumps around (turns out they are rather heavy), running about putting poles back up the inconsiderate competitors had allowed their horses to knock down, rallying various small girls to get their act together, saddling horses and ponies, consoling small tearful girls who had hit the dirt, photographing and videoing rounds, helping to catch runaway horses and, most annoyingly of all, hanging around during OFAT (Obligatory Faffing About Time) which seems to be inherent to any kind of equestrian event here in France.

Was bloody knackered by Sunday evening!

High points included Ali winning a class on Ches who was an absolute star, catching up with some mates and seeing them have fun on their neds, the sun coming out to play on the Sunday oh, and we found time for the odd glass of wine :-)

The kids enjoyed it too, I reckon.......

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.......