Searching for calm

Today it has been raining, A lot. Almost biblically in fact. Making us wish for a return to last weekend's freezing cold but dry days.....but never mind, we thought, we now have an indoor school at the yard, we can do some work with the horses and stay dry!

However, when we went to get the girls, they apparently had other ideas. I was expecting a certain amount of distraction due to the usual Saturday ritual of attempting to shoot the bountiful number of pheasants up in the woods behind the horses' field that seems to amuse the locals. I don't know how many they actually shoot, but they sure use a lot of ammunition during the attempt, it's just like being back in France really.....so Sky in particular was already somewhat on alert.

But they came trotting (well, sliding sideways at the trot, the field isn't exactly flat) down to the gate and walked along with us down to the yard, snorting at puddles and random bits of plastic, as is Sky's wont. It's not really Tari's won't however, and she seemed more worried about life than usual. Then we got to the Waterfall of Doom, where a gap in the guttering along the side of the school roof meant some water was falling from the hole and making a scary noise. This was simply not to be contemplated unless from the far end of the leadrope with much more and much  louder snorting. Not even peppermint horse treats would induce Tari to approach this monstrosity.....well alright, she got a bit closer but it's truly amazing how far her chunky little neck stretches out when she wants the treat but doesn't want to get any closer to something ;-)

Ah well, we thought, at least they haven't run away, but the general unease meant that we gave up on any idea of in hand or ridden work so we just decided to turn them out in the school and see what happened.

Running about, more snorting, pawing at the sand, a bit more running, generally ending up by the gate and not at all keen to be anywhere away from me and Ali. So we stuck with it, wandered about with them and bit by bit they calmed down enough for a few scratches and a bit of yawning.

So I suppose it was half an hour of what a friend of mine calls "nothing happens horsemanship". But by the end they were calm enough for me to be able to take them back to the field just in their neckstraps. In the rain.......

TRECing on.......

So last weekend we decided to enter a TREC competition at the local stables where the girls have been having lessons. It was part of the Kelly Marks TREC Winter Series, sounded a bit official, but they assured me that it would be a fun thing, so I signed Ali and myself up.

Sunday morning dawned......wet and windy, but we had high hopes of at least having dry horses to start with as they've been coming in at night recently to the modest little residence they share with the cows - a yard and a big barn - but no, they'd clearly spent the night in the open munching on the haylage in the feeder. So we had to get the towels out to try and dry the saddle area at least, and resign ourselves to most of the mud staying where it was (just for a change).

Off we went, armed with a map, the stables is about 4 miles away from the yard. Most of the way is small country roads although we did end up in the middle of Cam on a Sunday morning being stared at by the locals going out to fetch the paper. Came across an interesting road sign on a residential road, never seen that one before!

Maybe because of the incredibly wet conditions they are expecting a surge in amphibian numbers this year?

After an hour or so of getting rained on and blown about, we arrived at the stables, and managed to get let into the indoor school where the competition would take place to have a look around. Sky, predictably, was a snorting idiot, staring at herself in the mirror, baulking at going round the arena, and generally refusing to listen to Ali.

Gandalf just stood in the corner, cocked a hindleg up and had a snooze. So I led Sky round to show her nothing bad was in there, then we went into an outdoor arena for a bit of a look round. Sky once again initially refused to go away from the gate, then decided to trot off and investigate the horses in the adjacent field, stopped dead at the huge puddle down one end and tried to tear off back to the gate. We did eventually get her settled enough to attempt to practise for the Control of Paces, but there wasn't really a lot of control involved......

 

By now some of the other competitors had started to arrive in nice shiny trailers, and they all looked awfully clean and dry compared to our two....

But never mind, we went and lined up for our turn to compete. Ali went in first, Sky argued all the way through the COP so nuls points for that. Then it was on to the PTV, she wasn't too bad with some of it, but standing on her own for the immobility was too much to ask so she decided to go and stand with Ali and lose all her points......

Then it was my turn, Gandalf couldn't stay in canter round the corners but that's not unusual so I wasn't expecting points for that. We did OK on immobility and mounting (they provided a mounting block, how civilised!) and somehow even managed full marks for our jump (!) but we messed up with the gate which was one of those flimsy plastic jobs and was actually more difficult than the pole at Beaumont....

And one of the obstacles was to sidepass over a pole on the ground which I have never seen before and will definitely require some practise! So we certainly weren't in the ribbons, but it's all good experience, especially for Sky.

After our rounds we had a little picnic provided by the back up team. Sky was very interested in the sandwiches....

.....then it was time to set off back to the yard before dark. Cue more wind, rain and just for good measure, some hail, which was so bad we just had to stop and let the horses turn their backs to it until it let up! Thanks to the local knowledge of the staff at the riding school, we did find a nice track to go back on to avoid the frog-infested streets of Cam ...

...although what you can't see from the photo is that just to the left behind the hedge is the M5!

So a fun day despite the weather and our poor performance, apparently they're doing a full TREC comp there in the summer, hopefully that will involve less mud and rain....

White Horse Two......Kilburn

I have always been fascinated by the white chalk horse figures on UK hillsides, and I keep sying I must go and visit them all. We have managed to see a few of them including the very unusual Uffington White Horse a few years ago, but it's not so easy when you don't live in the country.

But now we do, and the Wiltshire ones aren't far away at all, so we really must get on with it. However, as we were up in Yorkshire this weekend visiting friends we decided to go and check out the only White Horse in the north of England, at Kilburn, near Thirsk.

The Kilburn White Horse was cut in 1857, apparently by a local schoolteacher and his pupils and on a clear day can be seen from as far away as Leeds. Unfortunately for us, as it is often grim ooop north, we got wind and rain and fog - definitely not a clear day :-/

So, pictures on the web show me that the horse looks like this when viewed from the village:

When we got there, we could barely make out the side of the hill.

We  followed the signs to the car park below the horse, from where again the good old internet shows me you can see most of it:

I, however, only managed to get this less than edifying picture:

Ah well, at least we found it. Maybe we'll go back sometime when the weather is better! In the meantime, here is an aerial view of the horse by those brilliant photographers at Last Refuge

.....taken on a sunny day!

For more about the white chalk horses in the UK, I can recommend this site.

A tad damp here.....

So as you've no doubt seen on the news, we've had a bit of weather in SW England recently. Luckily we live on the side of a hill so no flooding here, although the horses' field is pretty soggy......but nothing as bad as these poor horses in Dorset, so mustn't complain.....

Despite the weather we've kept the troops ticking over, the girls have been out in hand, and the water is a handy training exercise for them!

Even got the old boy to trot through this lot the other morning - good job they put a sign up, eh? ;-)

I am a happy bunny as now I have a nice new phone with a very clever camera, I can do shots like these.....

Going to have fun with it taking pics of Ali jumping, she's got a first lesson booked at the local stables next week, watch this space.....

Rain, rain......

Seems like I haven't done anything with the horses (or this blog) for ages, mainly because we've been over to the UK for the half term holiday (sorting out a few things, some changes on the horizon, more on that another day) and since we got back it has rained and rained......

So this morning as a tiny bit of sun appeared we went to take the girls for a walk. We were supposed to be doing a TREC training day up at the stables this weekend but it's been cancelled due to the ground being so wet :-( But there's no reason we can't do TREC training at home........

Tari first, we went for a wander in the woods with the SNO armed with a bag to collect things.....Tari was a bit curious but not too bothered by the rustling plastic thing

We found some logs to go over and branches to go under, a nice contre-bas and contre-haut - a pile of gravel that she scrambled up and down no problem.....

The stream was nice and full again and in she went, a slight panic at sinking in to the mud at the bottom but she soon figured out it wasn't quicksand (and there were some tasty plants growing in the water)

We took her back to the field and the it was Sky's turn, she was less happy to leave the others but we got her attention away from them long enough to do our little course too

Not at all keen on the water though, but when we did get her in, she splashed and Ali got soaked!

And now it's raining again, hopefully it'll stop at some point so we can get out for a hack this weekend ;-/

A somewhat soggy holiday.....

Haven't been around for a couple of weeks as we've been on our annual holiday to the UK. This time we went to Anglesey where wifi apparently hasn't yet been invented......

Stayed in a great holiday cottage near Beaumaris, discovered a great little ruined castle just up the road and a moody windswept beach down the road, yomped the kids around both!

We did the usual tourist stuff, including yomping small children up Snowdon (they were unimpressed)

....although we had to give up and turn back 2kms from the summit due to rather a lot of weather arriving, horizontal sleet, fog etc......Mike had already run up to the top though - and said you couldn't see a damn thing up there when we met him on his was back down!

Rather stunning countryside up there - the bits we could see, anyway.......

Of course we also went riding, a fun ride to the beach where we did some great canters, I managed to get a few shots before the rain arrived and forced me to put the camera away

Map and more photos of that ride here.

Great scenery in Wales, horses everywhere on Anglesey, could be a cool place to live if you were waterproof ;-) The sun did put in an appearance occasionally though, like the day we arrived and the day we left......

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.......