Jumping lesson....

Tanya and I took the girls for a jumping lesson up at Louise's yesterday, first trip in the new big trailer!
Seraphina was a bit unsure about loading but she eventually figured it out, they load from the side and the ramp is quite steep.......

The ponies behaved very well and were soon unloaded and warming up nicely

First they tackled a cross pole, no problems with that

...but when Seraphina saw her first ever spread, she was not happy! She kept running out until she'd had a good look at it but she eventually got the idea......

SO a pretty good good start for her really, here's a bit of video, complete with outtakes.....

A horsey day in the sun.....

Spent the day messing about with horses, great stuff! Built my first ever jumping course for the girls:

 tried out Tanya's posh new trailer....

.......and poor Sky got put through her paces by the SNO.....

.....not too many confidence problems there!

Horse transporters r us

Yesterday we spent the day moving horses around! First we had to take Soso up to the stables where he'll be at livery all summer. He didn't want to load. We spent nearly an hour getting him in the trailer, he eventually went in but as soon as the ramp went up he panicked big time and we were worried he'd do himself an injury so I fetched Seraphina and loaded her next to him, which calmed him down.

So off we went, unloaded them at the other end, Soso was a bit stressed so Seraphina had to go with him and check out the stable block.....

She had to stay with him until another horse was fetched so he wouldn't be on his own. Then she went back in the trailer, calm as you like!

We went back and fetched Chester then took the two of them to the new field I've rented.

The new field has a LOT of grass so I've cordoned off a small bit to start with, before they went in there we let then have a hooley around in my friend's big field next to it

then they went down to the new bit, they are as happy as the proverbial pigs in poo!!

Our first TREC competition

Today we loaded up Gandalf and Chester and headed off to do our first ever TREC competition. We did the "Parcours d'Orientation"  which is basically orienteering on horseback. Hollie and Aliénor came with us to ride ponies from the riding school and our friend Jo with her lovely youngster Socianda made up the "English" team.

The boys travelled really well, I've never actually taken Gandalf anywhere in a trailer, but he was great.

We tacked them up and headed off to get our maps, then off we went.

 It was all going really well til we got to an open field, when the girls' ponies decided they wanted to eat and resisted all attempts to get their heads off the floor. When I went to help, Hollie's pony kicked poor Gandalf!! So I got off and read it the riot act, got the pair of them on lead reins, I had one and Tanya had the other and off we went.

Sadly by this time both girls were thoroughly frightened by the ponies' behaviour, so at the first checkpoint they opted to get off and go back with Jo's husband in the car......

The checkpoints were great, lots of food, coffee, wine.....

We rode through some gorgeous countryside.....

and met the little kids on Shetlands doing the mini trec.....

Gandalf was very taken with the Shetlands and wanted to stop and say hello to them.....
When we got back, the boys went into a stable to munch some hay...

...although Chester wasn't  too keen on the neighbours trying to steal his food!

We had a nice meal too whilst the horses munched hay. And we finished second out of the club (ie novice) section! A very good day........

Couple of firsts for the babies today, we took them out for a bit of a graze and a walk around. Chester had just had his saddle taken off, so I thought I'd see how Sky would react if I put it on her, she didn't mind one bit......

As soon as Éowyn saw the saddle on her she started asking if she could ride her........so I stuck her on just for a second - and Sky never moved a muscle!

Then Kinna go ther first jumping lesson with Ali....little video here

Chester was a good boy too today, we wanted to check how he'd be in the trailer as we're  going to do a TREC competition next week (more about that here if you're interested).

He loaded fine....

Loading.....

Today we decided to try loading the girls into the trailer, Kinna was a bit hesitant.....

...but she went in OK after Sky and was quite happy to stand in there for a bit.

Such good girls!

Trailer loading.....

Trailer? No problem! As Mark Rashid says, if you act like you've got all day, it'll take five minutes!

Took her longer to reverse out than go in in the first place.......