Some new stuff......

Couple of firsts for Sky today. Took her out for a walk and decided to see what she thought of the tunnel under the railway, a bit concerned at first, but went under it fairly happily.

Then I saw some cows. They were obviously youngsters, judging by the way they went haring off when they saw us. That got Sky's attention.......then they came haring back to check her out, she did a huge spook and ran snorting to the end of the long line.....but didn't go further.

 She checked them out a bit more and eventually got close enough to say hello......

...and even said hello to the little donkey in with them

Must take her there more often........

Sometimes I wonder why I bother.....

OK, so I don't set myself up as some kind of horse fixer. All I try to do is help people, when they ask me, to have a better time with their horses. Usually that means I try to get them to be more confident around them. Sometimes I lend them one of mine (if they ask me to) to ride to be able to do so.
Having agreed to do that a few weeks ago, I have had to go and get my horse home this week because the loanee decided I was "using" her for free livery BUT at the same time,  just for good measure, she claimed that he would be better off staying with her as I have apparently been systematically overworking my poor horse.  As if that weren't enough,  she has described me as a "bully" of both horses and humans to a mutual friend. I have no idea why this has all kicked off, but one thing's for sure, I will think long and hard about helping anyone else I am not 100% sure of in the future......

Ocarina.....

Went up to Jane's today to see the big girl, Jane hasn't had time to do much with the horses recently as she's been busy working, but as I had the afternoon off from the SNO she asked me to come and show her some of this stuff I'd been doing with Chester. So I have lent her my Philippe Karl DVD and I showed her some of the "high hands" stuff today. Ocarina tends to lean on the bit and not take much notice of a contact so we did some groundwork first.

She went from this

to this in a relatively short time

then we progressed to mounted work

She has formed a real attachment to Maverick and if he went out of sight it all went out the window, so that's going to need some work too.......and she's always trying to rush everywhere too so Jane's going to work on getting her to slow down a bit.

Ali asked if she could ride Mav (something she wouldn't even have considered doing a year ago, shows how much having Fina has done for her confidence). He tried the usual stuff (napping, reversing) to get out of doing some work, you could almost see him thinking how much he could try and get away with, I reckon he thought he'd retired ;-)  but she got him listening to her and they had some fun

First river ride of the year......

Nearly 20 degrees out there today so we took the kids and horses down to the river. Rode over to Tanya's with my small noisy burden in front of the saddle, she kept wanting to trot and worked out that Gandalf will trot just from a click of the tongue, had to tell her to stop it!!!

As we rode past the Percheron breeder's farm he was out with a couple of his mares so we stopped for a chat.

This is not as simple as it sounds, him being deaf as a post and needing to lip read!! And he's not kneeling down in that pic, he really is that short.......

Then it was on to Tanya's where the SNO decided she wanted to ride Fina instead, which the NNP took remarkably well really, especially as she and her sister immediately started arguing check out Ali's expression, the SNO is being a tart for the camera......

We found a cool path down to the water and of course the girls (and the dog) got wet......

Even Gandalf had a splash in the water.......

We had a nice picnic (Gandalf was very interested in that!)

Then it was back to the campsite for a spot of jumping then we turned the horses out so they had a roll, a hooley and Ches & G started playing!

For some reason, it's always the boys that play like this, he never does with Sky and Fina......

A jumping competition

Just got back from our first experience of a CSO (SJ) comp here, Hollie was entered in the 50cm clear round class and we took Fina along for the experience.

They travelled in style, and we could keep an eye on them the whole way!

As we arrived early, I asked the organisers if Ali could take Fina in the collecting ring before the competitors and they said no problem, so Ali popped her over the practise jumps, she was good as gold......

They said she could stay in when the others arrived so she got used to other horses flying past her all over the place too. She was particularly taken with a big Fjord gelding......

Then we took her over to watch a few rounds in the arena, she seemed to be taking it all in......

Polo and Hollie went in to do their round but unfortunately Polo didn't seem very keen at all, he kept trying to run out and they eventually got disqualified, but Hollie finished the round and got him over everything eventually! It was his first show though and I'm sure he'll be better next time.

Some of the French kids seemed somewhat overhorsed and a fair few of them hit the deck and the horse went careering off round the arena, but it was very well organised and the first class was all done and dusted by 10.30.
There's another one next month north of Bordeaux, so we will give that a go and enter them both.

A day off!

The OH made it home this weekend for one of his rare visits so I got the day away from the SNO, a absolute luxury......

Went out this morning with Ali and Fina, rode Chester in his Western saddle which is possibly the most uncomfortable saddle I have ever sat in. Nice little amble (for me, gotta watch the back) by the river, Ali and Fina (and Choccy) did some hooleying and jumping

Then this afternoon went up to ride Gandalf out with Tess. His new saddle has arrived, and it's a lot more comfy than Ches's!! Organza was a good girl, we even managed to stretch the elastic a bit and got her five whole vine rows away from us :-)

And the best thing about today? No small (but insistent and loud) voice saying "mummy I need a poo!" ......

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.....