er... second January weekend plans?

Beau was very fresh in his lesson - think I need to work him a bit harder before we start jumping 😳

Managed to book an emergency lesson tomorrow afternoon so hoping that will sort out our issues 🤞🏻
 
We’re going to our first ever dressage on Saturday then have a polework lesson on Sunday. Wish us luck.

Horse has decided overnight she doesn’t load anymore though so I will caveat that with we are “hopefully” going to these things!
 
Fionn and I are entered in some flexi eventing on Saturday, we are doing an intro dressage test 91 and 70cm SJ. Am rather terrified at taking my fluffy native 13.2 out with all the huge posh 16.2 fully clipped eventers.

Are you going to Portmore wheels?

Fiona
 
Have fun everyone, some great weekends planned by the sound of it.

Coolie and I have a lesson on Saturday arvo, buckling down and getting on with dressage. Have plans to get out at the next level so we really need to add a lot more polish! Henry will just work at home at some point around normal human things.

Sunday we are going for a ride out with friends. Really looking forward to it, I've had itchy feet wanting to get out and about but also not wanting to compete. Hoping this weekend helps soothe those feelings.
 
Fiona said:
Fionn and I are entered in some flexi eventing on Saturday, we are doing an intro dressage test 91 and 70cm SJ. Am rather terrified at taking my fluffy native 13.2 out with all the huge posh 16.2 fully clipped eventers.

Are you going to Portmore wheels?

Fiona
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Sending good luck vibes Fiona! Let us know how it goes, I will compete there myself in a few weeks time, might have a school around the XC next week

We're going to the RDA in Coleraine for our Derby - it's my most local venue at about half an hour away instead of the usual 1hr 20 or above and I like to support them when I can
 
Hmm, wonder what next week’s thread title will be 🤔.

Sounds like lots of fun and that many folks are out and about this weekend. Looking forward the the updates.

Scats, your post rang very true for me as I was guilty of the same. Bit rusty since not doing much over Xmas. Last week’s lesson he went lovely, right back where we were before our short Dec break. Got on this week and it was like riding a one sided plank. I forgot all my lessons, got all tense and tight which made it worse. Did manage to find some solutions but I was a bit down about it. Worked through it in my lesson yesterday though so hopefully I’ll retain some of that info going forward!

I’m also trying to jump once a week and, like chippers and Mavandkaz, need to find that elusive rhythm! The red mist descends when I’m jumping even tiny poles and I go all flappy kicky which pushes F out of his stride. So more practice to make it all less scary, for me, hopefully.

I’ll be hacking and jumping in the school this weekend. When my lorry is back, I need to take F hunting again on instructor’s orders - woohoo, just my kind of orders 😀. He goes much better when he’s had a blast and a good run out, bless him.
 
Bernster said:
Hmm, wonder what next week’s thread title will be 🤔.
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cheeky! lol! feel free to start it yourself :p

Well I survived the lesson but not sure it was the best idea I've ever had as was just about dead afterwards and paying for it today. Was good for Kira though, could almost sense her relief on getting off the ramp, that she knew where she was and it was time for some normal work :)
 
I'm writing for my local UA dressage tomorrow, and hoping to hack out on Sunday. (Dentist visit today, for what I strongly suspect is Blue's first time ever, so I'm expecting there'll be enough work necessary to leave her a little uncomfortable for a day or two. Or I could be projecting, considering I had dental surgery myself on Monday and the thought of having a bit in my gob makes me want to kick.) For added fun, hacking will be in a bareback pad, because I don't have a saddle that fits atm.
 
Tomorrow, I’m giving my boy a bit of a spruce as previous owners gave him to me with quite a few poo marks. Plus it’ll be good bonding experience. Might ride if I have time/the schools free.

Sunday I’m trying to convince my friend to come for a hack. Again, it’ll be Badgers first hack around here. But when I hacked him when I tried him, he was perfect so I’m not THAT nervous!!
 
somerford farm ride sat with sis and a friend on saturday, teaching one on sunday and apart from that very chilled out :)

tentatively thinking about doing P7 with the 4yo in Feb before the young pony qualifiers get going in the spring, so will look at the diary and try and schedule another arena hire in maybe end of jan.
 
Have fun Hallo2012. I love the farm ride.

Well my hack did not go to plan. I went in a friend's trailer instead of the lorry as the lanes where we were going were tiny. Amber went down and has made a bit of a mess of herself getting back up again. Luckily once I got the hose on her it was far less serious than it looked. Just a couple of superficial scrapes but she somehow managed to smear the little blood there was a very long way so my blood ran cold when I first unloaded her. That's it for me and trailers though now. Lorries all the way! Funnily enough I was unhappy as soon as she had loaded but could not rationalise why. It just looked too small and she seemed a bit tense in it but it was the same trailer I used to tow her round in all the time. Once they have got used to a lorry do they struggle with trailers?
 
Ambers Echo said:
Have fun Hallo2012. I love the farm ride.

Well my hack did not go to plan. I went in a friend's trailer instead of the lorry as the lanes where we were going were tiny. Amber went down and has made a bit of a mess of herself getting back up again. Luckily once I got the hose on her it was far less serious than it looked. Just a couple of superficial scrapes but she somehow managed to smear the little blood there was a very long way so my blood ran cold when I first unloaded her. That's it for me and trailers though now. Lorries all the way! Funnily enough I was unhappy as soon as she had loaded but could not rationalise why. It just looked too small and she seemed a bit tense in it but it was the same trailer I used to tow her round in all the time. Once they have got used to a lorry do they struggle with trailers?
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Oh, that must have been a horrible shock! So glad it wasn't as serious as it looked, and hope she's feeling better soon. (And so are you!)
 
Sitting in a castle hotel, drinking courtesy wine, about to use the spa, looking forward to watching the house sitter muck out for me on camera later today 🏊👌😁

Recharging batteries before starting real work on two green babies with the aim of Intro tests in March or April for both.
 
Thanks Pippity. It was a bit of a drama! I was obviously not prepared to drive her back in the trailer so my friend drove me back to the yard so I could get the lorry and then I went and picked her up. And then got stuck on the tiny roads as another lorry was coming the other way..... In the end the other driver crawled past me as I was hard over on the verge. The 2 lorries were literally cms apart. Yikes. I phoned my YO in a panic for her first aid skills, and she came to check on Amber when I got back. But by then she had been hosed down and there was almost nothing to see as the blood had been washed away. I think my YO thinks I'm a bit of a drama queen!!
 
Hallo2012 said:
somerford farm ride sat with sis and a friend on saturday, teaching one on sunday and apart from that very chilled out :)

tentatively thinking about doing P7 with the 4yo in Feb before the young pony qualifiers get going in the spring, so will look at the diary and try and schedule another arena hire in maybe end of jan.
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Long trip for sis, but you must miss each other's company badly since you've moved away, and it's such a GREAT ride, isn't it? I can hardly wait until the first one of mine is ready to go. February, maybe. Have fun!
 
Ooh fab well done chippers. You look like a very nice partnership. And interestingly from the vid anyway there isn’t as much of a difference btw 70 and 80. I need to watch these heights more as I have a mental block about 80 and feel like it is huuuuuuge.

There is also a disctinct lack of flapping and kicking going on there, which is most confusing to me haha 😉
 
Ha you have to look close to see the flapping and kicking! Thanks 😊
I tell myself there's only 1 pole in it (which is true as most poles are 10cm in diameter!) But I still feel like it's a big jump up, even though it isn't! I also think because they normally put the fillers under when it gets to 80 that the jumps look a lot more big and solid.

Only a pole....Only a pole...
 
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Yes they look a bit fuller with the fillers in although oddly it’s gappy fences that tend to bother me more. But truly, any fences bother me right now haha.
 
Beau’s emergency lesson went pretty well. Had a few bobbles where I was committed but he was a bit hesitant which meant he nearly smacked me in the face over the fence 😑 but overall he was much better than yesterday. 🙂

Blue was super in his lesson. Trainer was nice for the first round and then whacked the fences up. I was 🤢 the Whole way round 😂 but we made it round relatively unscathed. I really need to get used to how much time he spends in the air - I feel like I’m getting left behind over every fence 😳

I’m quite looking forwards to the show tomorrow now. 🙂

 
Chippers, I used to be 🤢 jumping round a 70cm course and I still get nervous to the point of being in tears at shows and sometimes in lessons as well. You can see where I bottled in twice in that video 🙈

You jumped a height that was out of your comfort zone and you should be super proud of that. 🙂

As an aside, my chestnut also goes disunited quite a bit when jumping. He doesn’t change so I leave it up to him to fix his legs - if he’s balanced he can still jump off the wrong lead quite easily.
 
It doesn't show that you're nervous! You have to wonder why we do it sometimes 😅
That's good to hear, as you can see from the video mine's pretty balanced when he's disunited or on the wrong lead so I just kept him going forwards (also because sometimes I can't pull him up in time, he gets excited!) But I'd like it if he didn't as it throws me off a bit. I'm sure with time we'll manage it.
 
No riding for me this weekend now - I knocked my hat out of the Disco earlier and it's visibly cracked :mad:.
I now need a new peaked hat and new skull cap. Are there any good opinions on the Samshields?
 
I recently bought one and I like it - it’s too easy to go a little crazy and spend a fortune though.

My every day hat is a Charles Owen and my samshield wasn’t that much more expensive but I went for navy matte with rose gold logo - pretty plain compared to some of them. 🙂
 
I did my UA prelim and novice today. We are not really ready for novice and I hadn't been able to ride through either of the tests but Rose is a complete trooper! P14 went very well and we were 2nd out of 2 with 68.46%. the pure dressage classes were very low for P and N as there was CT running and the main competitors were eventers preparing for the season. We did slightly better in the N27, winning with 68.75 despite a complete foul up when she gave me a change (well at least she can do them) as we came across the diagonal, and then got a bit tense but gave me the correct lead from walk (good girl). She did some very good trot work in the novice which made up for the mistakes. The marking was generous but the comments were spot on, the judge clearly liked Rose very much. She hadn't been to this venue and there was a big bonfire going on the site next to the arena and loads of big machinery etc but she didn't bat an eyelid!. Looking at the CT scores for our tests, we held our own so I was very pleased as I know we can do much better.
 
Fionn and I had a great though nervewracking morning at flexi eventing.... He warmed up well in a horrendously busy, albeit large warm up and did a very nice test. Turned out to be 65% which was in the top half, with scores ranging from 50-73%.

Then we jumped a few practice fences and headed off into the arena.

He's never been in this particular arena before, but he was super, not spooky at all, and jumped a really lovely double clear 😊😊😊

Or so I thought, until they announced I had 4 faults for circling.... Fair enough I hear you say, but my circling was actually between fence 8 in round 1, and fence 1 of round 2 (and I hadn't even passed through the start yet)... Methinks in that case they should have numbered continuously ie nos 9-14 rather than round 2 1-6 but anyway 😣😣😣

Still, I know F and I were clear, we just won't get our names in the paper 😣😣

No rest tomorrow either, as I seem to have booked us an arena xc lesson 😲

Will have to take F and his pony out next weekend...

Fiona
 
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