Welcome to another blog, one that I’ve written with lots of mandatory ice cream! The weather has been challenging with some seriously hot temperatures. Here we’ve resorted to getting up at 5am and doing as much riding as possible, before requiring an afternoon nap to get over my heat stroke! (No lie) Lots of lessons have been postponed after horses have struggled in the heat and frustrated Eventers have had a challenging time with concrete ground conditions. We don’t do things by halves in Britain – it’s either a monsoon or a drought, and don’t forget the blizzards in March! Well done everyone for surviving!
We had a lovely start to July with another mention in the Horse & Hound magazine for Ruin as an example of a very slow maturing horse!! When the editor of my region, Andrea, interviewed me about Ruin’s Elementary Freestyle success last month his juvenile behaviour inevitably came up… She then rang me again a few days later to see if I would mind being the case study for a H&H vet section she was editing, focusing on slow maturing horses! So I gave her the full history and a few weeks later Ruin had another feature in the Horse & Hound.
Ruin’s June H&H mention finished stating that the next plan was for Advanced Medium and mid-July Ruin did his first Advanced Mediums! I wasn’t feeling super confident because (a) it was boiling hot and I’d be riding in the worst of it, (b) Ruin is ‘laid back’ as it is, (c) it was his first time doing two tests, and (d) it was also his first time doing lateral work and flying changes in a test. In fact Ruin was so ‘tired’ I had to plait him while he napped – he point blank refused to get up! He warmed up well but went very green on me in the first test as I half expected – as soon as we cantered in I could tell he was feeling a bit confused. To be fair he was doing an elementary just a month ago and he’s never cantered into an arena before! So we had an interesting start but he settled as the test went on. I wasn’t worried – you usually find that when a horse does flying changes and lateral work in a test for the first time they lose their mojo slightly and this definitely happened with his half passes (a struggle of his anyway) but I was thrilled that his flying changes were ace.
The second test was the championship Advanced Medium test and was so much better. He went in really confidently and felt his normal self. Our canter in went from a 5.5 in the first test to a 7.5! The lateral work was also much better, phew. Unfortunately, he was starting to tire and his normally awesome flying changes suffered, although having said that he still got 7s for them. I must say I was so chuffed with how hard he tried to do his ‘big trot’. There are several medium and extended trots in this test which are not his forte; they are getting better as he strengthens (he’s only 8 after all) but he put his all in to them and tried his absolute socks off to flick those toes! Didn’t have high expectations due to his greenness and the mistakes (one of which scored us an appropriate 2!) so I was absolutely buzzing to get over 67% in both! You never know if they are ready for such a big step up and Ruin never exactly gives you that feeling but the gamble definitely paid off. I’ve entered the Advanced Medium classes at the Midway Championships at Hartpury at the end of August so lots of work to do!
We started this hard work with a lesson with my trainer Gareth Hughes. I hadn’t been to Gareth with Ruin since the beginning of the year, purely because at our last few lessons we had been working on the same thing – teaching Ruin halfpass. Knowing that Ruin learns things VERY slowly (understatement of the century) I decided the best plan would be to work at it at home for as long as it takes, and then go back to Gareth once we seemed to be actually getting somewhere! Well eventually Ruin seemed to ‘get’ the concept of halfpass. Well done Ruin; it’s only taken you 7 months… In one session it suddenly clicked so that night I texted Gareth to book a lesson! Gareth was super busy competing Internationally in the run up to WEG selection (World Equestrian Games) so it was a few weeks until we got to go but it was the worth the wait. It was great to know how much Ruin has come on over the last few months and our hard work (and what felt like endless drilling) has paid off. But of course now the hard work really begins and we were put through our paces! Lots of homework to do which I love and I am, as always, determined to tick it all off before I’m back there in a fortnight.
With the focus being on Ruin the last month, the other horses have concentrated on training at home. G is going from strength to strength and I’m particularly pleased with her canter, which is almost unrecognisable from 10 weeks ago. It will be awesome when she’s completely relaxed!
The other newbies, Apple and Friday, are progressing well too. Even though Apple trained to race I decided to take him back to the start and re-back him and then see what retraining I need to do. As Friday had done near-zero I started from scratch with her, which is almost easier as you know what they have done – i.e. nothing! Both are now walking, trotting and cantering around the arena like pros. They are such fast learners – I do love a TB! I’m very excited about Friday; she gives such a lovely sensitive feeling, I can already tell she’s going to be right up my alley. You can tell she’s a chestnut mare though…she’s quite sassy! Apple on the other hand needs his hand held a little and for the rider to give him confidence, but with that he is just growing every ride and it’s so lovely to see. He lacks a little coordination at times, as he proved in our first trot ride where he picked up trot beautifully before promptly tripping and pulling off a shoe!
With a manic month behind us it’s now on to another manic one! Lots on in August, culminating with the Midway Championships. Cannot wait! Having just done an Elementary Freestyle with Ruin I now need to scrap that and start again with an Advanced Medium one, ready to debut at Hartpury in a few weeks…nothing like a challenge! If we can do as well as in his last one then I won’t complain; no pressure Ruin! See you next time.
