Well I hope you are ready…we have had one busy and unpredictable month!
So you know I said at the end of my last blog that there might be a new arrival on the yard? Well I’d like to introduce the latest member of the horsey family…or should I say memberS plural! Basically why buy one when you can buy two? (No it sadly wasn’t BOGOF) Not quite sure how this happened…I seem incapable of following simple plans. For example a few months ago I did not want or need a new horse and ended up buying G. Then when I’m in the position to purchase a youngster to event, I manage to acquire two!! Three new horses within as many weeks must be some kind of record… There’s no hope for me.
So welcome to the new recruits: firstly a 16.2hh 5yo French TB bay gelding ex-racehorse called ‘Apple’ – yes really…wait until you hear his posh name – ’Big Bad Apple’…I’m not even making this up! He’s had a year out so I’m starting him from scratch before retraining. Also, a near untouched little 4yo non-racing TB chestnut mare called ‘Friday’. Friday has apparently been ‘sat on’ but I interpret this as rider leaps on and sits in saddle briefly before quickly dismounting and stating the horse has now been ‘sat on’. Yep that totally counts as being backed…i.e. 100% does not count! Now something you cannot miss when meeting Friday is her colour. I am not a colourist, although I do love a grey, in fact my greatest successes have been on greys. I will not lie though, last on my wish list would have been something small and orange. But she’ll compliment my XC colours so I can’t complain! She is very little – no exaggeration; her fly mask is XS and labelled for yearlings! She’s 16hh on her tiptoes (i.e. 15.3hh) and I own her with Lisa Lessels, who I am so thankful to, I am very lucky. I shall produce both to event and am really excited about them. There are some great ROR classes out there, including in dressage. Dressage is so important for eventers and my eventers are still schooled like dressage horses and I take them to my pure dressage trainers. A double clear won’t cut it! I aim for mine to do their dressage test like a proper dressage horse and having these extra classes and championships specifically for ex-racers is a fantastic scheme to highlight their retraining and showcase their dressage.
While talking about eventing, my mention-of-the-month must go to Charlotte Byrnes and her boy Dizzee. They haven’t always had the easiest time but came to me for some lessons (dressage and SJ) before their recent BE90. I made some significant alternations and it clearly paid off as they got the best dressage score in their section (about 50 combinations!) plus a rare SJ clear to come 2nd after some unfortunate XC time faults! What an improvement and very exciting as it’s early days and there’s much more to come.
The rest of my horsey collection have been doing well with only G providing our required drama. She has a habit of jumping out of her field; this is something I knew before I bought her. She clearly thinks “it’s fine doing dressage now mum, I’ll jump in my own time”! However when I decided to give her a loose school over some jumps in the indoor arena she obviously thought that the little cross was too small, and instead casually trotted toward and jumped delicately over the 5’ stone wall! I need to be kept on my toes apparently…
Ruin fortunately decided to be a little more predictable and gave me a great competitive outing this month. I took him to do his first freestyle at Elementary level. Decided only a week before so I quickly put some music and a floorplan together a few days before! It went really well though and Ruin was such a good boy. I was absolutely thrilled to come 1st in a big class with over 76% and from a List 1 Judge! What a clever boy, go over to my youtube channel for a little clip. In case I wasn’t buzzing enough we then had a lovely feature in the Horse & Hound with a really nice write up of his success and photo. It was great to be back in the magazine as it’s been a year or two since my last mention.
July looks to be another busy month. Now that Ruin seems to have cracked the left halfpass – it’s only taken 7 months – I have booked a couple of lessons with my trainer Gareth (Hughes) so can’t wait to see what he thinks. I confess I didn’t think it would take quite so long to achieve our homework! Our next competition is planned at Advanced Medium later in the month, which should be fun. Plus I’m riding him for some BD judge and coaching workshops going through the Advanced Medium championship test. This is such a great thing to do – we wouldn’t be able to do what we do and compete without our judges so it’s nice to give something back. In addition you get a judge’s perspective and feedback which can only be helpful. Now I just need to quickly teach Ruin how to reverse (on demand)…what could go wrong?! See you next time.
