Why I'm happy to have dirty horses......

Since moving back to the UK there is one thing about the horses that I see here that is really noticeable. They are pretty much all rugged, all of the time. Even when, as it was this last weekend, the weather is sunny and mild and in fact temperatures have been as high as 18 degrees C. We haven't had a cold winter at all, just a very wet one, and that I suspect is a large part of the reason for the extra layers.

When it rains and we get wet, we get cold. Horses don't though. Mine have nice thick waterproof coats that prevent the rain from actually getting through to their skin. You can see in this pic of Gandalf that the white clean bit near the skin is actually dry.

This was taken after weeks of rain. They don't have a field shelter, if it gets really windy the go and hide in the hedges. At night they have to come in to a yard with an open sided barn attached since the landowner doesn't want the horses on the land 24/7 in winter. They are always wet in the morning if it's been raining overnight so clearly don't take shelter in the barn. Unlike the cows they share with!

The other thing about the rain is, well, the mud. Here's how muddy our field has become this winter....

And I reckon this is the real reason for that nice waterproof jacket people seem prepared to spend sometimes hundreds of pounds on. Cos underneath that rug, he'll stay "nice" and clean. Nice for the owner, that is.

But do these owners stop to consider how that horse must be feeling under his rug when the sun is out and the day warms up? When he's losing his winter coat and would love to roll as it's so itchy? Or how he must feel when it's been raining so long the rug is saturated and he can't dry out once the rain stops?

 

Horses don't care how dirty and muddy they are, in fact for Gandalf it would appear the muddier he gets, the better......

 

It's just the humans who care.

 

Someone (who clipped, rugged and stabled her horses) once told me I shouldn't call myself Chevalblanc on the forum we used to frequent as my horses were never white. It would seem that for some people appearance is more important than a horse's wellbeing. Spending a load of money on rugs with pretty patterns on them must make these people feel better, same as tucking their horse up into a nice warm stable at night does. Shame it doesn't make the horse feel better. If you still doubt that, check out this article......

 

Oh, and my horses are white, but only in the summer ;-)

 

 

 

Poor Skysie..... :-(

So recently, young Skyfaxa has finally started to get her act together. After her little strop at the TREC the other week, we weren't expecting too much when we went back to the stables for the half term fun show. To be on the safe side, I entered her in the mini jumping class, and Ali was fully expecting to be beaten by a four year old on a lead rein.

But no, Missy decided she'd be fine with going into the indoor school this time and actually made an effort to jump some of the (tiny) obstacles!

Which meant we felt a bit guilty entering a 13 year old against the tinies, we had to explain why to the other parents, some of whom, having jumped round alongside their 4 year old bouncing about on a small hairy pony, were giving us frosty looks and muttering about unfairness.....especially when it turned out Sky had won!

So Ali immediately started planning more stuff to do, after all, she's rising 5 and will be capable of a bit more than last year when, as always, there's a setback. She came in looking a bit short in front the other night and the next morning was definitely lame in her near fore. Nothing obvious form looking at the hoof, but I suspect there's an abscess brewing. Given our previous experiences with getting them dug out, and the conditions in the field right now, we've decided to just leave it to work its own way out. I think I'm with Joe Camp on this anyway....

Mini pony club

At Tumpy Green, they do something called Mini Pony Club, for 4 - 6 year olds, and the SNO has been very excited about going. She gets to spend time with other similarly pink small girls and cuddle fat hairy ponies but also half of the session is in the classroom learning about things to earn badges.

It's amazing the motivational properties of a small piece of embroidered cloth.....

So the first week, they did this

and this

and this

and she got one of these

Today's classroom session was about poisonous plants and what ponies can and can't eat.

 In case you were wondering, here's the list she made:

So now you know :-)

No badge yet, they have to finish the session next time and find pictures of bad plants to bring in. Maybe we should tell them about Kinna and the St John's Wort......?

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....

Why do they do it?

A couple of years ago we happened to be in Paris for the Marathon and we went to see Versailles. On the way in, I noticed Louis XIV's modest little stable block was now the home of the Académie Equestre de Versailles. It wasn't open to the public that time of year but we had a wander round the back and saw a horse being worked. Unfortunately, this is what we saw......

So when I had the chance to go back to Versailles last week, I went to look at the Académie again. They now have a sand school in front of the building in full view of passersby. Again, a couple of horses were being worked, and the pictures speak for themselves.....

So let's just say I won't be paying to go and see any of their shows anytime soon. If I'd had more time I'd have gone and asked them why they felt the need to ride the horses like that. Maybe I'll write to them and ask.....

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.....