Weekend plans for mid-October

My big lad had a vet check on Tuesday, his surgeon was up at a local practice from the university vet hospital she’s based at. She’s very happy with him and said he’s hitting all the milestones - scan shows continued improvement and there is no fluid etc. We’ve another 8 weeks of walking, then she will assess again.
We are now allowed to walk on the roads though and can also start to introduce some poles etc in a few weeks. I don’t want to take him into an arena yet, because he will almost certainly go nuts - so instead going to stick to the hard surface for now.
So really that covers my weekend plans up until December ??
Going to watch some hunter trials today.
 
Not much for us this weekend, still reliving our team chase from last weekend and watching videos on repeat ?

Boxing over to a friend's place for an off road hack to keep fitness up and then flatwork tomorrow go keep working on improving balance and suppleness in our lateral work.

And need to tackle new yearling and see what he thinks of wearing a rug, so we are prepared BEFORE the depths of winter, as he is a lanky bean and likely will need a bum cover for when it is freezy, wet and windy.
He was barn kept at the breeder's so a winter of overnight turnout is new for him!
 
RF - that’s very frustrating!! Were the scores generally low?

We’ve had a great first day at camp, I’m over the moon with Chilli. It’s been full-on as we drove here early this morning and straight into a lesson, then various unmounted sessions for me before a test riding session including a coached warm up.

He seems to be growing up as we had far less tension and no tantrums or napping. We had a go at N22 despite our first attempts at medium trot being in the warm up ?. He went very wobbly on the centre lines as he was slightly napping to the gate, but otherwise tried really hard. Sack the jockey, as I forgot a circle! Counter canter was very easy (again, we’ve only done it a couple of times) and the medium canters were very ‘yee-haa!’ but he came back to me.

Dead chuffed! Although the judge did say it looked a bit exciting…
Wine and dinner time now!
 
j1ffy said:
RF - that’s very frustrating!! Were the scores generally low?

We’ve had a great first day at camp, I’m over the moon with Chilli. It’s been full-on as we drove here early this morning and straight into a lesson, then various unmounted sessions for me before a test riding session including a coached warm up.

He seems to be growing up as we had far less tension and no tantrums or napping. We had a go at N22 despite our first attempts at medium trot being in the warm up ?. He went very wobbly on the centre lines as he was slightly napping to the gate, but otherwise tried really hard. Sack the jockey, as I forgot a circle! Counter canter was very easy (again, we’ve only done it a couple of times) and the medium canters were very ‘yee-haa!’ but he came back to me.

Dead chuffed! Although the judge did say it looked a bit exciting…
Wine and dinner time now!
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Scores were wildly varied. It's a judge who LOVES my other horse (on the forehand, wooden inflexible TB) and gives him 70+ scores every time, that I really don't think he truly deserves. And then always gives Isaac rather low marks - despite being better balanced, a better mover and equally obedient. Oh well, that's life! I mean I was under the same judge at a BE event once (ok the TB) and she placed me in front of all 4 of Oli Townend's horses in the section. But on Simon I get an 8 for riding score, and on Isaac a 6.5 - I find this to be all a bit strange.
 
Great schooling session today with my new knowledge of Ludo's (congenital?) non-arthritic bone spurs in the hocks and the advice to crack on and keep him fit. I cut him a lot less slack than usual lately and he responded really well to the increased pressure.

I started a spreadsheet this afternoon to record his work and the number of times a hock "gives way" to be sure I can track any degradation and get early treatment if necessary. Ironically, after taking him to be investigated because he was "falling off" the right, today he had only one moment and it was the left. I'm happy with that, equal sided is good.

My main objective today was working/medium trot gear changes, which he's only recently been able to do. They felt pretty damn good for an early attempt.

Tomorrow we will start in hand raised poles to increase quadriceps strength, if it's not pouring with rain in the afternoon, because the pole work arena isn't under cover.
.
 
Had the best fun at Oasby BE90 today.

Thought did have a slight “depressage” like RF for 39 which he really didn’t deserve. It wasn’t his best test I’ll admit, but it felt like a middle of the road test, maybe a 34-35. Judge put lots of comments about him being very on the forehand, which came as a big surprise because Pepsi has many faults in the dressage arena, but being on the forehand isn’t one of them!! (It’s usually very much the opposite)

Thought all was made up by the following two phases! One pole SJ, don’t really know why but he just dropped his back legs onto fence 5. But jumped the rest of the course brilliantly. Then a storming clear XC which just put the biggest smile on my face, he just felt so confident! 20 secs too slow (mostly because of one pilot error) but that’s still the closest we’ve been to the time this season.

I think we’ve finally found a bitting combo that works, so hopefully next season we can eliminate the silly steering malfunctions and pilot errors.

We certainly weren’t troubling the leaders but I just had the best time, Pepsi was on fantastic form, and I can’t wait for next season to start so we can get that post XC buzz again

We started the season with the aim of completing a BE80, so to be getting XC clears at BE90 is over and above what I wanted. Plus I actually get excited about going eventing now, not just so nervous I want to be sick ?

P is now going to have a couple of well deserved weeks off, his back shoes come off next week too. I know I’ll be desperate to just have a sneaky ride, but at least I’m busy for the next few weekends so I won’t be too tempted!
 
Clipped Millie yesterday and took her out hacking this evening. Will probably have to start morning riding in the next week coz I’m running out of daylight at the other end of the day now.
She was wired tonight! Combination of fresh clip and a chilly and breezy evening. I absolutely love it when she’s sharp and daft ?
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Day two of camp was also very good, though Chilli was deeply unimpressed by Sunday afternoon when I appeared with the saddle YET AGAIN and we had a second go at our Novice test. The morning lesson was great, we worked on medium trot which really helped to loosen the working trot. Unfortunately we had a break in the first medium in the test and he changed legs in the second medium canter, but otherwise the judge (and I) felt it was a better effort despite the mark being lower.

Great weekend all round, I really recommend a BD camp for anyone considering it! We also had Kevin Sparrow there yesterday so I splashed out on some piccies:

BD camp 1 low res.jpg

Penny starting to drop for the medium trot:

BD camp 2 low res.jpg

Canter is still a bit 'tense' (aka barely controllable - my face!!):

BD camp 3 low res.jpg
 
j1ffy said:
Day two of camp was also very good, though Chilli was deeply unimpressed by Sunday afternoon when I appeared with the saddle YET AGAIN and we had a second go at our Novice test. The morning lesson was great, we worked on medium trot which really helped to loosen the working trot. Unfortunately we had a break in the first medium in the test and he changed legs in the second medium canter, but otherwise the judge (and I) felt it was a better effort despite the mark being lower.

Great weekend all round, I really recommend a BD camp for anyone considering it! We also had Kevin Sparrow there yesterday so I splashed out on some piccies:

View attachment 100853

Penny starting to drop for the medium trot:

View attachment 100854

Canter is still a bit 'tense' (aka barely controllable - my face!!):

View attachment 100855:cool:
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What a horse he is shaping up into!
 
Well, Nova did significantly improve his dressage attempt this time round (probably helped by me actually riding him) and, having been a fire breathing dragon in the warm up, he settled well and scored 66%. Ok, still some way off where can/ need to be, but good progress and gives us more to work on.
Eagle was then a total star in his lesson- he has suddenly switched the racehorse part of his brain off and settled into being a really easy riding horse. He gave me a lovely ride. Still just building the foundations so it's not perfect, but @LEC and I are sharing our journey here-

 
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TheMule said:
Well, Nova did signifi Antony improve his dressage attempt this time round (probably helped by me actually riding him) and, having been a fire breathing dragon in the warm up, he settled well and scored 66%. Ok, still some way off where can/ need to be, but good progress and gives up more to work on.
Eagle was then a total star in his lesson- he has suddenly switched the racehorse part of his brain off and settled into being a really easy riding horse. He gave me a lovely ride. Still just building the foundations so it's not perfect, but @LEC and I are sharing our journey here-

Click to expand...

They both have the makings of lovely jumping horses don't they.
 
RachelFerd said:
They both have the makings of lovely jumping horses don't they.
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I really think we've lucked out- just bought out the field and they both have a great attitude, give a lovely ride and I think there's enough ability in there to be useful too. More people should consider ex-racers. Mine is unshod, fat on just grass and as tough as nails
 
Typically, Jack come in from the field with a loose shoe so I ended up taking Beau to my lesson.

I wasn’t expecting much as he’s basically had to start again from scratch this spring after two years of hacking (to allow his hocks to fuse) so I was over the moon with how much we actually managed and what he’s now capable of ?

quiet day today as I have to get the arena set up for thursday’s jumping clinic since we’re away down south horse shopping tomorrow - hopefully the 4am start will be worth it ???


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