Weekend plans :D

[Wheels]

I am going to ride!

I was at the hospital earlier this week and they have moulded a splint just for me! It's very comfortable and I can move the tip of my thumb whilst the rest is held in place - very happy with it. I asked the doc if I could ride and he said I shouldn't be going near horses at all in case it gets knocked but he wouldn't tell me not to ride, only advise I shouldn't (and also mumbled something about horses riders never taking advice lol). That was the gap I was looking for - he didn't say I couldn't.

I feel quite confident that the splint will protect me enough to have a light schooling session and maybe a hack Can't wait

I lunged M on Wednesday, did an in-hand session last night and he was very willing, moving really well and his shoulder in was the best I've seen him do so I think the short break did him good

 

[j1ffy]

BR - sorry to read your news
Good luck to all competing.

I'm waiting to hear back from the vet about X-rays they took of Indio's fetlocks. He's really not right (lame on a right circle and positive to flexion tests) and I suspect his arthritis is worse. In the meantime we're doing the odd mooching hack, which he's very cheerful about! Not sure yet what it means for our dressage career but Indio will get whatever he needs.

Sunday I'm taking a friend out to Prelim BD so will be on morale-building / grooming / driving duties!

 

[Wheels]

oh no j1ffy, I hope you get some answers!

 

[Fanatical]

Getting extremely wet by the looks of it! ;-)

 

[Bernster]

Wheels that’s hilarious cos really he kind of did...that’s riders for you though. Bonkers.

 

[Britestar]

I'm entered for our second attempt at dressage on Sunday, but suspect I may wimp out. The plan was to hire the scary arena with mirrors a few times to get her used to it, but I just haven't had time. Throw in the fact that she hasn't been ridden for a week, and I'd just be setting her up to fail.

If I don't do the in-person dressage, I'm going to make the effort to do an online dressage test. Even though they're both Intro B, which I really don't like.

Dressage4all (online) has intro C this month if that's any help

 

[Chippers1]

Well Buzz was terrible to ride today! The worst of the spookiness this week. I think something had happened at the field because everyone was struggling to get their horses out, it was very odd. It meant he was jumping at every sound!
I've been struggling so much with his spooking this week, he can be a little spooky but it's increased ten fold, I can't ride him round the edge of any of our fields or school as the trees are horse eating monsters. He's seen these trees many many times!
I'm putting it down to the wind and the grass growing but I really hope it stops soon, it's not fun!

 

[Asha]

We are supposed to be going to Berriewood on Sunday, the weather looks like it’s against us . So may not run . Will decide Saturday. Other than that , nothing much planned

Good luck to everyone out and about

 

[Wheels]

Wheels that’s hilarious cos really he kind of did...that’s riders for you though. Bonkers.

Sshhhh.. don't tell on me

 

[nikicb]

Sorry I haven't posted for a few weeks, things have been a bit full on.

What a pain Denbob - loading issues are so incredibly frustrating. Luckily all four of mine are easy loaders, but my old mare wasn't, and even once we got it cracked, if I wasn't carrying a schooling whip to give her a tickle, she would just plant. Hope you get it cracked.

BR2 - so sorry to read your thread on Lily - you must still be reeling. That's a beautiful picture. xx

j1ffy - fingers crossed for Indio - it's horrid that they can't tell us exactly what's wrong. xx

Good luck to everyone out and about this weekend.

My 13.2 roan pony has done a check ligament and Cam kicked my little old Sec A on Saturday resulting in a backside that Kim Kardashian would have been proud of. Thankfully just soft tissue damage, but he actually would barely walk for a couple of days and needed cold hosing and painkillers for a few days. He's now moaning that he has been turned out on his own in the school for the week and Cam is sulking that he is also on his own as the roany pony is on restricted turn out. If the Sec A was a bit wimpier, he would keep out of Cam's way, but he stands up to him and that's probably how this happened. Hopefully I can restore our normal turnout regime soon.

Cassie and I were meant to be competing at Pachesham Area Festival on Sunday, but we qualified for the Novice AF Final at Kingswood last weekend, so have withdrawn. If it had been more local, I may have gone, but it would have been a 150 mile round trip and a 5 am start so I decided against it. On Wednesday we went to Checkendon and completed our Prelim Silver Regionals Qualification with 67.6% and 68.1% so in our lesson today we got to play with some more fun stuff as a reward! We are heading to an Equagility day on Sunday - should be interesting and give us a break from circles, but still keep Cassie's brain occupied.

Link to some pictures from our AF last weekend.....

https://www.facebook.com/CassieCamCo/posts/1362619877210369

 

[Jinx94]

Tomorrow morning I'll be fence judging at Aston Le Walls, and on Sunday we're doing our first ever dressage test!

Thankfully no travelling required as our yard runs a very relaxed 'dress down' dressage quite regularly. When I entered, Tris was working really well, but this week has made me rethink. However, entry is paid so I figure that we might as well give it a go. It's only intro! What's the worst that can happen?!

 

[DressageCob]

My ODE at Eland has been cancelled so I am playing ponies at home now Not too disappointed as I've woken up with a ridiculous ear infection so am a tad off balance 😄 But I felt I needed another baby ODE before proper Eland BE at the end of the month, so I suppose I will have to just put my brave pants on and go for it!

 

[Chippers1]

That's a shame @DressageCob, I saw their post about it. It is pretty horrible out!
We managed to miss the rain out jumping this morning. It was a lovely little course, and Buzz was the best he's been all week. No spooking!
Here is us finishing on 1m05!! Although he looks like he just scraped over 😅 he did leave it up! Just a single jump but I did do it 3 times 😬 did a full course of 80/85 a few times with some scary fillers and he was great, very pleased with him. I have a video I might put up later.

 

[Wheels]

Shame dressage cob! I hate when things get cancelled

Great pic chippers!

 

[j1ffy]

Pocholo’s loaner had a kitten emergency today so I rode him and led Indio today, then popped Pocholo over some fences.

They’d clearly decided I need to work on my arms today...I arrived to find them like this (and yes, Pocholo is on a weight loss plan! Little chubster!):

 

[milliepops]

Good outing for us today. Last show was a music and she got very anxious about the noise so today's objectives were
1. restore confidence in the test arena
2. attempt to get some of the quality we're developing at home

Mission accomplished on both counts She felt relaxed and happy in the warm up even though it was quite busy (9 entries in the PYO Advanced/PSG class, quite a lot for that venue) and really started to push up under the saddle in the trot and canter. Slightly miscalculated the warm up duration needed so I went in feeling like I hadn't quite done enough but tbh she usually changes so much between warm up and test arena, i figured it was not that important

Super chuffed to get Expensive Trot in the test arena too! This has been our bootcamp output, developing some really decent activity and more expression - the trot of an expensive horse
All the trot work was easy and reliably forward, first time it's felt that good in the test - I've been run off with a few times and more often than not she clams up, so it was fab to feel the rideable power today. Forgot how to trot in the first 8m circle when she was distracted by 2 terrifying pigeons sitting on the side but we shooed them away to carry on well enough. She tried her little socks off in the extensions, confident tempis, piris not as connected as I would like but that was the hasty warm up coming back to bite us.
So the scores were not as consistent as they have been, but we got some 7s for the sideways trot bits that we haven't had before, really showing that the bootcamp is paying off and if we can get that again then the higher scores are within reach at last

All nudging along
Contemplating trying some clicker training to get Kira to pose for photos because honestly this was the best of a bad bunch today

 

[Wheels]

I think that's a great photo MP! Shows her character.

M is also on a diet j1ffy! He's been in for a few hours today and will be on the weedy / crap grass paddock for the next few days, I'm sure he'll be most upset about it but hey ho!

I rode! Yay, it was fab. M's had about 3 weeks off from ridden work, we've done a few lunging and in hand sessions but he's definitely lost a little bit of fitness.

We had a good schooling session, mostly in walk and trot with a couple of canters just to assess where he was at. Canter needs building up again and the lateral work has lost a little polish especially renvers and half pass left. We will do a bit of hacking now and then pick up the schooling. Aiming for a dressage comp 1st weekend of July.

 

[Pippity]

Blue had a rude shock and did a good hour of trot out hacking today, with - gasp - some CANTER! This is the first time she's cantered (deliberately) under saddle, so really quite exciting. We definitely need to work on transitions, and she's not balanced enough to do it in the school yet, but it was lovely to feel her stretching out like that!

 

[Wheels]

That's great pippity! Always good to get the first canter

 

[Snowfilly]

Sounds like lots of people have had good days.

Royal Cornwall was not so much fun yesterday, it rained for the whole 8 hours I was brave enough to stay and watch, and we ended up missing a couple of classes because it was too wet to venture out the grandstand.

Today was much better, although I still can't watch other people's heavies without getting teary eyed over my boy. Broke my heart to remember him bouncing around the main ring there in previous years.

Then we stayed to watch the hunt relay which is the closing act, only for the last rider in the second heat to have a terrible rotational fall. Honestly thought it was fatal for the horse at first, and he was knocked unconscious. Luckily, the horse got up under his own steam and just seemed a bit sore, but the paramedics were treating him for over 20 minutes before they announced everything else was cancelled. It felt awful walking out the ground knowing he was still on the floor, and they haven't updated on social media yet...praying it's good news for him and his family.

Very sobering to watch.

 

[Wheels]

Wow that's grim snowfilly! Hope the poor person is ok

 

[Asha]

My ODE at Eland has been cancelled so I am playing ponies at home now Not too disappointed as I've woken up with a ridiculous ear infection so am a tad off balance 😄 But I felt I needed another baby ODE before proper Eland BE at the end of the month, so I suppose I will have to just put my brave pants on and go for it!

Same here, was all set for Berriewoood tomorrow , but both days have been cancelled . So a quiet one for us . At least we have Catton next week . Fingers crossed for a bit of dry weather

 

[Ambers Echo]

We saw that Eland and Berriewood were off and assumed Speetley would follow. But it ran today and fab little Dolly pulled out a 38.5 dressage and double clear with just 1.6 time pens. To finish 11th and continuing her remarkable run of no jumping faults in any competition. So Katie has smashed my BE personal best at her first try. Bloody kids....

Love the picture of Kira MP. Here's a particularly attractive one of Dolly enjoying her post XC mash.

 

[rara007]

Bit of a tricky week culminating in having one of the ponies shot Friday but the lorry just about got back from it’s plating in time to pack for a ODE yesterday. Dressage was swings and roundabouts- for ODEs you use your XC carriage for all 3 phases so that made it a little tricky as did the crazy wind and rain. He was calm and there were some improvements but it didn’t go unnoticed he takes charge at times! A reasonable 63% (59 pen) which had us in 3rd in the (very small!) horse class but our competitors were all doing much simpler tests. Two ponies were doing the 3* test and we were middle of them so no disgrace. A quick bit change and a comfy double clear cones then a schooling XC round in testing conditions. Manage to lose a shoe somewhere but we were much closer to being ‘together’ and as planned we learnt a bit more. Finished in 2nd I think but edging closer to the fast guys XC.
Pictures from last weekend as don’t think there was any yesterday!

 

[rosiesowner]

@milliepops you need the ClickNow app, costs 99p and you can play a whole manner of horsey/other animal/squeaky toy/food bucket shaking sounds which make them prick their ears and then press the button to take a photo. Very useful!

 

[rosiesowner]

@milliepops as you can see, the food noises are most effective on chilli...

 

[milliepops]

@milliepops you need the ClickNow app, costs 99p and you can play a whole manner of horsey/other animal/squeaky toy/food bucket shaking sounds which make them prick their ears and then press the button to take a photo. Very useful!

Just need to combine that with some "parking" training then 😂 rustling my pockets triggers a mugging attempt 😅

 

[Bernster]

That’s awful snow filly, sounds horrid.

Chippers x the jumping looks awesome.

MP - love that write up and the expensive trot and the pic is awesome.

Wheels - glad you’re back on again.

The weather is all over the show. Started with wind and rain yesterday but ended up nice and sunny and today’s it’s lovely out.

Went to a local hack and gallop track yesterday. First outing with 2 in the lorry. They travelled well, plenty of space even though the other horse is 17h plus and lorry felt the same as it does with 1. Had to tack up outside in the wind and rain so F defaulted to his less pleasant side, pawing the ground and fidgeting, but it never lasts and once I’m on he settles straight away. Had a potter about the fields and then had 2 lovely gallops which both horses enjoyed. Def going back as its 20 mins away and £10 and, with the hard ground, it’s nice to get a good blow out. Helps to get F fitter too.

 

[Ambers Echo]

Rosie that looks fab!

Bernster, interesting you say 2 feels like 1. In mu lorry having 2 on makes a huge difference. I wonder why? Maybe because my engine is not very strong so I am very aware of the extra weight?

 

[Bernster]

Rosie that looks fab!

Bernster, interesting you say 2 feels like 1. In mu lorry having 2 on makes a huge difference. I wonder why? Maybe because my engine is not very strong so I am very aware of the extra weight?

Admittedly it was pretty flat most of the way so didn’t test it out on many big hills but I really didn’t ‘feel’ any more weight in the back. A tiny bit more moving about from the 2 horses but that was it. It’s a 4.5t with 1.7t payload so it *should* be fine ofc. I don’t know the engine size (haha an unimportant element) but am pleased with how it did on the first joint outing.