Recent content by Caol Ila

I am by no means experienced with these things, but when we weaned my BOGOF foal, my mare lost her f** mind. For like two months. She'd forgotten everything I taught her. She'd freak out at everything...I remember her running in tiny circles while I tried to remove a rug....it was miserable...

To me, this shows how arbitrary and how much of a social construct dressage is. Why is 'ground covering' scored higher than effortless high school movements, hm? Why are combinations who are light, easy, and harmonious, but not huge movers, not getting the same scores as people who have tense...

Agree with you. Horse looked more relaxed and open in his frame than many international GP horses, but he did appear to require a lot of leg to stay in piaffe/passage. Just seems that a lot of these leg-flinging warmbloods aren't particularly strong in the piaffe, so seeing riders wrestling...

I'm not very dog-tolerant so go from zero to 60 quite quickly when one comes at me. Just don't care. Get the f-- away from my horse, you dumba$$ wolf-like creature, or I will beat you to death with my dressage whip. Lost my f888in nut a couple weeks ago when a bulldog thing ran towards us. They...

First ride to the pub/Milngavie town centre of the year. Needed a day my OH wasn't at work, the weather didn't suck, and we didn't have something else we had to do.

This. In a few years' time, your daughter will have very little memory of how many birthday parties she went to when she was 18 months old. Can you remember much from that age? I guess there is a lot of social pressure from other parents to do these things, but if you can let that wash over...

Yes. Someone wanted to hack with me yesterday, and I had to find a nice way to put them off because I was doing a fast 3.5 hour ride and their horse has hardly been ridden all winter. Didn’t think it was fair on him, plus I was feeling rubbish and antisocial anyway.

That pad has 1/2" felt pads on its underside. It's a beast. The panels on the saddle are not the original Ghost ones. They are Freeform panels. Quite a different shape. My horse did not like the Ghost panels, and whatever I did with shimming, I couldn't get the pressure off the area just...

Among other weird things I've had to do, I started using a western pad with my Ghost.

I imagine that parents have some awareness of what these kids are up to online. But maybe not. I don't know. As someone who does not have children, I have no idea how hard or easy it is to supervise your kid's internet activities these days. When I was a tween/teen, we had a single shared family...

Uh, yeah, that seems to be a thing. One of the kids at my yard (she's like 11ish) was very carefully setting up her phone to take a video of her galloping her pony around the arena, screaming like a banshee, pretending the (saint of a) pony was taking off with her and she was terrified. Then...

Of course he’s great. It’s David Tennant!

Could he improve with time and mileage? You haven't had him long, as I recall. I imagine finding something who can be a 30k endurance horse straight out of the gate is challenging. Especially if you can't find/afford one who is already doing that job, so you have to take a punt on prospects.

I like those ones that say "five star home only." Who the hell says, "Well, I will only provide a three star home....?" Are horses getting together on ratemyowner.com and writing reviews?

Yeah, there are quite a few brands that don't have straps that can get caught around the pastern. Though if I had one that get itself into that much of a state about that, I'd probably work on it. God forbid they ever got their foot caught on something. Was the incident of him freaking out at...