Post Easter Weekend Thread

[Ample Prosecco]

Haven’t seen a thread? I’m showjumping at Eland in my ongoing quest for 5 DCs for Aintree Amateur Champs and 4 BN DCs for second rounds.

Had a frustrating SJ lesson this afternoon. The sort of ‘oh god I just can’t ride’ lesson. If Lottie is feeling cooperative the rounds are quite smooth, but when she is wired and fresh, and accelerates to fences my strategies for dealing with her just aren’t good enough. At one point I turned to stop and she locked onto the huge pile of poles and wings in the centre of the arena. Noooooooooo Lottie!!!

Could be an interesting weekend

#springgrass

 

[Nicnac]

Good luck. I'm still rehabbing stifle injury. Progressed to trot in straight lines down long side and he's sound. Being really cautious as he's rising 17 and I know I take longer to recover from injuries as an older girl. Will hack Saturday in walk and probably same Sunday. Not terribly exciting but hopeful we'll be back competing when the weather finally improves - if it ever does!

 

[The Xmas Furry]

At present I have absolutely no plans made, tho depending on the weather I might try to blag a space in a sj clinic, join a friend for a boxing up and exploring hack, who knows....
I have however decided that my competition days are over, so its clinics, camps and social hacking etc for us. So, I'll be watching this and future threads for comp reports

 

[Britestar]

Have a 'try before you buy' session with a saddler on Saturday.

I'll be trying different stirrup irons, to see what the fuss is about with all these really expensive ones. Will they be that much different from my £25 plastic ones?

I'm also getting a shot of a winderen pad.

Is love to try the girths, but none are small enough for my pony.

Pal is going to try wow free space, erebus and scharff freedom girths.

If you buy anything, she takes off the fee paid for the slot.

 

[McFluff]

Not sure, as storm Kathleen is threatening to make it too windy to travel. If wind isn’t too bad, hope to have another bash at an Elementary test.

Good luck and hope weather doesn’t stop too many plans.

 

[humblepie]

Looking too windy to travel. Have fun those out and about.

 

[SaddlePsych'D]

No horsey plans for me this weekend Tbh I need the rest and to get back on track with my physio exercises but still I will miss it!

 

[CanteringCarrot]

I have a lesson on Saturday. I'm basically riding western dressage right now. Have to work with what you've got! It's not on my own horse. Nice little mare though.

For my horse, I'm not sure what we'll do. I'm thinking long lining, handwalk/in hand hack, and some other groundwork.

Or sometimes we just play "football" or is it "hoofball"

 

[Caol Ila]

My plan is swearing. A lot. Both Sat and Sun. 50mph winds forecast for both days. WTF am I meant to do with that??

Your baby looks great, CC. Hope your weather is less pants than ours. I am thinking of places to move.

 

[blodwyn1]

I am supposed to be doing a working equitation clinic but G has been getting above herself lately and with the weather I am not sure we will survive it! ATM thinking of trading in all hysterical welshies for a nice safe gypsy cob!

 

[CanteringCarrot]

My plan is swearing. A lot. Both Sat and Sun. 50mph winds forecast for both days. WTF am I meant to do with that??

Your baby looks great, CC. Hope your weather is less pants than ours. I am thinking of places to move.

Ah, that wind is normal for where I am. 30mph is a gentle breeze here, 40-50 is normal our weather is warm and sunny, with wind on most days. We did get some rain and storms (thankfully no tornado touched down here or large hail), but we need more because of the drought.

I'd still take Scotland over this place!

 

[SEL]

A clinic in high winds on Sunday. I already know of 2 cancellations but I can't see the lady running it cancelling because she'll have paid for the venue hire so will assess Sunday morning I think. Neck strap at the ready.

Torrential again. I hired an arena on Wed - got drenched but at least the surface was ok. Need to ride today but hacking routes are unsafe and field a bog. It feels never ending this year.

 

[dorsetladette]

I want to sit on the babies again, but that's not happening if Kathleen shows up, I can't work out weather we will get it or not, but it's getting blustery already.

I want to be at a point I've got Robin walking nicely up the road for the end of the month and then I can hack everyday on my week off in May.

The field is to slippy to do anything safely and I don't have anything else to work with.

 

[millitiger]

Not much for us thankfully, with storm Kathleen coming through

Hacking today
Run through test tomorrow
Tail wash sunday
Monday a lesson
Thursday off to BD Nationals! hoping for a nice photo.

I reclipped last weekend, feathers and mane trimmed up so all ready!

 

[Alibear]

It's currently raining but supposed to switch to warm but very windy tomorrow. I have a lesson at 11:30, so we'll see what that brings. I've caved and got some acoustic ears to see if that helps her be more settled in the wind.
We got drenched riding last night but as there was no wind she worked really nicely.

 

[j1ffy]

We're off to the working equitation camp at Unicorn! Two lessons a day plus a psychology talk and a masterclass so should be fun...let's hope the obstacles are setup indoors so they don't all blow over!

 

[shortstuff99]

I am off with the big cob man to the BRC Novice Winter Champs at Arena UK tomorrow. Weather currently says 20mph winds with gusts potentially to 40mph, so hopefully should be okay .

He has been going well at home so if I don't ride like an idiot I am hoping for a rosette!

 

[Wishfilly]

As others have said, the weather is not looking good at all, and that combined with the ground means our tentative plan has been cancelled this weekend, which is probably a good decision! Given the winds I don't think we will be going out and about anywhere, and possibly not even hacking, as parts of our usual hacking routes are quite exposed.

To be honest, after everything we've done the last two weekends, a quiet one won't do anyone any harm, and he's been schooled twice this week in between showers!

 

[shortstuff99]

Proof that I have attempted to wash the big cob man for tomorrow . Wind still looking okay for travelling tomorrow and I only have to go up the A1 so an easy journey for me

 

[SaddlePsych'D]

Proof that I have attempted to wash the big cob man for tomorrow . Wind still looking okay for travelling tomorrow and I only have to go up the A1 so an easy journey for me

View attachment 137078

Looking good!

The 'no horse plans' blow has been softened by the storm situation. I was actually oblivious to it but the weather looks fairly crummy where I am too. Longer term don't want to be a fair weather rider but want to make things easy while I work up my confidence. Also don't really want to be out in winds described as 'gusty' horse or no horse.

I've found a new horsey vlogger to check out so will get stuck into that.

 

[iknowmyvalue]

The worst of the wind seems to be tomorrow, which I’m really hoping is true because we are meant to be eventing on Sunday! I’m half waiting for it to be abandoned, but Larkhill seem confident the ground will hold up (though maybe not the parking…)

 

[Britestar]

Back from the try before you buy day.
Tried 4 different types of stirrups.
Freejump air, winderen, flex ons and another that I don't know the name of.

The unknown ones (which apparently are new), felt really heavy under my foot, didn't like them. Also in canter, made me bounce in the saddle.
Winderens made me reach for them (?), and made me hovver in canter.
Flex ons I didn't really tell the difference between the ones I currently use.
Freejump air had a nice amount of give when doing riding trot, and I sat into the horse in canter.

I really didn't think there would be any difference, so was very suprised.

I'm also £160 lighter of pocket now

 

[millitiger]

We had a fairly wild run through of Thursday's test today
He definitely seemed to know we should have been eventing today, which was cancelled with the wet ground.
And he has decided Elementary now gives him too much thinking time so we had some unrequired rockets at times.

I am looking forward to lesson on Monday to regain some control!
I don't want to be galloping out of an arena at the Nationals, with everyone on fancy dressage horses

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Great day at Eland. DC in the 85 amateur championship qualifier. Then another DC in the BN to place 4th for some cash. Hurray. Lottie is such a genuine, generous horse, giving me 2 great rounds despite some very dodgy steering

 

[SaddlePsych'D]

Well done AE and Lottie!

 

[SEL]

Very proud of my boy today. I was not looking forward to a clinic on top of a hill in 45 mph gusts. Last time with this instructor (in an indoor) he was appalling and we spent a lot of time showing my sticky seat skills.

Absolute superstar today. The other two horses in the clinic were quite lit up with the weather, the surface was blowing in our faces and the wind was making everything rattle and howl.

Kept a lid on it until right at the end when we had one mini (& a bit pathetic!) explosion.

I think leaving him out last night helped - shattered

 

[Wishfilly]

Well done to all those who managed to get out and about this weekend! I thought we'd been brave for managing to hack!

 

[shortstuff99]

Little report from yesterday!

Took the big cob man for only his third ever proper show yesterday, which just happened to be the BRC Novice Winter Chanps with about 500 competitors .

Spent Friday afternoon and Saturday morning trying to make him vaguely clean and un mud like. I had a nice sensible afternoon time but was probably the first time I wished for early morning as it was supposed to get windier in the afternoon .

The wind wasn't too bad so we set off up the A1 with the wind behind us so was a pretty good journey. Arrived at Arena UK where it was a bit of a gale! Took a while for the parkers to find us a spot (what a great job they did!) Then got all checked in and sorted.

Big cob man was very good taking it all in when he hadn't seen anything like this before! Horses and things everywhere. The dressage warm-up was large but was the warm-up for 5 arenas and had the jumping arena next door. Now I was a bit worried about this as he is very worried by horses cantering near him and I have been decked from this before . I didn’t do lots of warm-up and he was very good.

Little vid of warm-up and of the site!

10 minutes before your time they send you down to the competition arenas and another smaller warm-up. Went in and did my test and bless him he tried so hard! Horse screaming it's head off right next to the arena and all the wind made him a bit nervous so he went behind my leg and dropped the contact but I couldn't have been happier with him! For a very green horse and only third show it can only improve from here

Vid of test

To top it off we came 9th so got a rosette and was only 1% off 2nd place!

 

[SaddlePsych'D]

Well done shortstuff!

This is a tenuous link to actual riding/training/competing but when I can't get near an actual horse due to time/money/Long Covid, it helps my motivation to make the link...I just did a 25 minute 'flow style' yoga (i.e., not just breathing/stretching) including some planks and high lunges and down dogs, that a month ago made me feel ill with headache and dizziness and weird ear pulsing so I'd had to stop just a few minutes in. Today I did pretty much everything in it and aside from feeling unfit, I do not feel ill!! Huzzah! This is huge! Not just for helping my riding but there are some aerial exercise classes I desperately want to get back to; these involve getting upside down a lot so it doesn't bode well if doing a forward fold or down dog makes me feel sick

In more horsey related stuff I am enjoying new YouTube vlogger ellahorses and reading my rider confidence book again Actual riding lesson next week, forecast looking good I think. Can't blooming wait!

 

[McFluff]

All cancelled here - 60 mph wind is rather destructive and stops play!
Lovely to hear about others getting out.