Lol, I've only had about 3 or 4 friends plus a coach ride B.
Gosh you could almost be talking about the little grey mare. Do I know you????
Ah, mines a little brown mare
she makes me grin so much.
Very neat gate manoeuvre. We went to a demo of working equitation last week, it looks fun (especially when you get up to speed)
The Appy went through a few years of non stop eye problems and getting ointment in was very stressful.View attachment 115469
Eye looking much better this morning, which is just aswell as putting her eye ointment in was not particularly successful. She fought the vet putting it in under a lot of sedation yesterday so it was inevitable that she wasn’t going to be a very good patient! She also won’t eat her inflacam.
What I did to deserve this useless creature, I don’t know
Love your fly mask. Where did you get it?It was a hacking day today, but a very hot and dusty one... until I heard the chimes of the ice cream van. We chased him down and flagged him to stop.
It is always good when you find a practical use for your new found manoeuvrability! BH
used his manoeuvrability exercises to smurdle up to the window, where he stood like a champ for the man to serve us, complete with noisy generator in his lughole.
The man was tickled that he was serving a horse and took a load of photos on his phone too. BH also got a free ice cream, which he wasn't so keen on and a free cornet, which he was.
The 99 was gorgeous
We met a new horse on the way home that we rode with a short way. BH was then very mannerly when we split up, in the middle of open ground: he just strolled away.
View attachment 115492View attachment 115493
See below.
Some difficult conditions today but my friend's horse did really well and was superbly ridden by friend. Hope all other HHO'ers at MvH had a good day and all safe home.
, arguably plenty to jump for just a 60 and given the forecast and ground I do think was best to size down a bit! It does unfortunately mean we dont' get to go through the water (I feel like courses without water might be a thing here?! I'm used to 2 on a course regardless of jump height 
) I do however love that even the first fence has an L alternative 
On the other hand most horses were incredibly well managed - vetting quickly and successfully and with well prepared and organised crews enabling their recovery. It was much harder for the horses yesterday so a runner won the race but many, many runners also found it brutal and vetted themselves out for welfare reasons lol. I had a couple of friends running and truly, even for an experienced endurance runner yesterday's MvH was tough and totally unforgiving. I felt quite choked about it all tbh!! Having said that, sadly there were horses that were carrying too much weight for this kind of event and the same for some riders: that made me sad, cross and frustrated tbh and added more weight to my view that we need enforced horse/rider weight ratios and limits for competitive events or where disciplines demand significant physical exertion in training and/or competing. No horse ever preferred a larger rider than necessary, or to carry too much weight themselves although I absolutely understand the struggle for riders and horse keepers to manage optimum weights. But a lot of food for thought!! Man V Horse is a great event; really friendly, well managed and yet properly 'testing' of horse and rider fitness and horsemanship. I just think our 'culture' needs a bit of a talking to about fitness, fatness and sporting demands. The winning horses and riders were fantastically well prepared and managed and were a real credit to 'amateur' horse sport though. I was delighted to get home after a long, hard, hot day and very pleased to see my own horses relaxing, oblivious and entirely untested lol.
I'll make a massive assumption and suggest that none of the runners were carrying more weight than necessary?Man v Horse was a bit brutal yesterday! Incredibly hot, hard and humid conditions with the crew veterinary briefing emphasising the need to support all horses in the event of trouble. And trouble there did seem to be on occasions!! A couple of people had rather unwisely chosen to compete without a crew; potentially that is do-able but needs organisation and probably sacrificing riding competitively. From what I saw, that didn't necessarily apply....but the mid-way crewing point was able to support a couple of horses that were struggling. Some really high heart rates with much careful cooling needed, many lost shoes and quite a number of horses vetted out for a variety of reasons. A couple of apparantly clueless riders not having arranged crews but still pushing their horses which really wasn't great.
My friend and her horse did so well - riding conservatively due to heat and size of horse so his mid way HR was immediately fine to go to the vet and was even lower at the end. No placing but huge satisifaction in managing a big horse over such a difficult course.
. He's a bit sticky on the way out but he goes and given that's our first solo after doing lead pair for a friend I am well chuffed (Frankly having something that will go over the first fence is a novelty, this was not Frank's forte)
