Wimbles
Well-Known Member
This is a bit of a multi-update with a series of reports about one of my ex racer boys, Zerdiyan (also known by us as LLoyd)
When he came to me at the end of last summer we went through six months barefoot rehabbing of his feet as they weren't in the best shape and he wasn't right even in heartbars. I overhauled his diet and spent lots of time conditioning his feet on different surfaces and he slowly came good.
In January I got on him and took him to his first horseball training session, it wasn't a huge success as he was scared to death of the ball, couldn't achieve a normal trot for constant head nodding and cantering was out of the question. I got to work with him, improving his schooling, strengthening him up and getting him used to the ball. In March we played in our first league match and I was really chuffed with him.
In the April league weekend the wheels fell off a bit, he knew what to expect and wasn't sure he liked it and decided that planting his feet and then doing incredible leaps was the way forward. I was really disappointed.
I went away and worked really hard with lots of training, hacking, schooling and at the May matches had a much improved horse.
In June I had booked into an XC clinic with one of my other horses, Brian, but on the night before he came in without a shoe so at the 11th hour Lloyd was called in as a substitute, having never jumped a bloomin' fence with me at all! Well he was a superstar at the clinic taking on absolutely everything we put him at!
Brian was also booked in to do a couple of dressage tests a couple of weeks later and the shoe issue re-surfaced so the super-sub was brought it once more. He performed two really nice tests, narrowly missing out on top 6 placings in both classes.
He then went and did a 15 mile pleasure ride around Chatsworth and was incredibly polite and a joy to ride.
Then the biggy! We went with a team from the British League to play horseball in France. This was a new one for me, I've certainly never driven a horse onto a boat before! It was an incredible experience and although in some of the matches my boy was a little overwhelmed, we learnt so much and I would do it all again in a heartbeat!
He might have thought that his adventures were over but a couple of weekends ago we tried our hand at Arena Eventing, this time our first go over coloured poles. Well, again he flew everything and made me really proud (although we did have a hairy moment where all the stop/starting blew his brain a bit and we reverted to the planting and leaping and I got splatted!).
So from a little horse with a quite a few issues that I just hoped would play a bit of horseball, I now have a fab allrounder
When he came to me at the end of last summer we went through six months barefoot rehabbing of his feet as they weren't in the best shape and he wasn't right even in heartbars. I overhauled his diet and spent lots of time conditioning his feet on different surfaces and he slowly came good.
In January I got on him and took him to his first horseball training session, it wasn't a huge success as he was scared to death of the ball, couldn't achieve a normal trot for constant head nodding and cantering was out of the question. I got to work with him, improving his schooling, strengthening him up and getting him used to the ball. In March we played in our first league match and I was really chuffed with him.
In the April league weekend the wheels fell off a bit, he knew what to expect and wasn't sure he liked it and decided that planting his feet and then doing incredible leaps was the way forward. I was really disappointed.
I went away and worked really hard with lots of training, hacking, schooling and at the May matches had a much improved horse.
In June I had booked into an XC clinic with one of my other horses, Brian, but on the night before he came in without a shoe so at the 11th hour Lloyd was called in as a substitute, having never jumped a bloomin' fence with me at all! Well he was a superstar at the clinic taking on absolutely everything we put him at!
Brian was also booked in to do a couple of dressage tests a couple of weeks later and the shoe issue re-surfaced so the super-sub was brought it once more. He performed two really nice tests, narrowly missing out on top 6 placings in both classes.
He then went and did a 15 mile pleasure ride around Chatsworth and was incredibly polite and a joy to ride.
Then the biggy! We went with a team from the British League to play horseball in France. This was a new one for me, I've certainly never driven a horse onto a boat before! It was an incredible experience and although in some of the matches my boy was a little overwhelmed, we learnt so much and I would do it all again in a heartbeat!
He might have thought that his adventures were over but a couple of weekends ago we tried our hand at Arena Eventing, this time our first go over coloured poles. Well, again he flew everything and made me really proud (although we did have a hairy moment where all the stop/starting blew his brain a bit and we reverted to the planting and leaping and I got splatted!).
So from a little horse with a quite a few issues that I just hoped would play a bit of horseball, I now have a fab allrounder
