Weekends gone quiet ?

Some hacks some lessons, struggling a bit, and no shows until April for us. But clinics start again in January, so I'm looking forwards to that. Hubby and I are waiting on our operations dates so that will slow progress anyway so tick over it is.
 
I've been busy with non-horsey activities for November, but I'm back out competing with little madam on sunday (show jumping at 95cm) and on "washed out mini madam" at 70cm. Mini madam is a riding school pony that is green in the school and at show jumping, she only used to hack infrequently before arriving about 2 years ago now. I've volunteered / been volunteered to start her out competing to hopefully get her ready to take younger riders out when she's ready. She's so far been very straight forward, point and shoot type. What she lacks in technique, she makes up for in boldness and very little seems to phase her. I think she's brilliant, but I suspect that her opinions might come out occasionally if someone isn't up to communicating clearly what they want. And I've found a saddle that doesn't leave me half way up her neck after two jumps! (saddle fitting is not really a thing over here in my corner of France, and certainly beyond what the riding school can afford, so we do as best we can with what we've got).
Pictures from out last competition in October to illustrate the "washed out mini madam"


Mini madam (riding school pony):
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Little Madam (mine):
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Actually been fairly busy here.
I signed up for the 6 month BD winter membership, so have been making the most of it. Luckily one of the local centres does BD every fortnight so we've been to three in a row, and have one more in December, and then we will have two sets of qualifications for Pet Plans.

The coblet is also back up and running properly, so she's been out to a couple of jumping clinics, and now the ground has softened up, weekends are spent out on long, fast hacks.
Am a little fed up of getting wet, but generally making the most of it. Plus work is so stressful at this time of year I need the mental help that riding brings.
 
Horse is off any work until we get boots for him, and I can't imagine a report on stretches/basic scentwork would be particularly interesting. If I'm feeling adventurous, I'll spend the weekend tackling the tail that hasn't seen a brush for months...
 
stangs said:
Horse is off any work until we get boots for him, and I can't imagine a report on stretches/basic scentwork would be particularly interesting. If I'm feeling adventurous, I'll spend the weekend tackling the tail that hasn't seen a brush for months...
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, what is scentwork for a horse? (Assuming you're referring to a horse not a dog in that bit of the sentence)
 
I've been out doing baby dressage on the pony. She is unexpectedly quite sticky and spooky in indoor arenas so just a case of a repetition really. On the flip side she is fit as a flea and going well schooling at home so fingers crossed the indoor arena issue irons itself out. Pic from weekend before last
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Arty is coming back from her mystery swollen leg, and then a swollen eye from poking herself in it ?. But now I'm sort of in the swing of competing (as much as I ever am), I'll try to get her out to some elementarys and maybe a medium in the next few months.
 
Fighting weather, daylight, and Fin being difficult.

He saw physio on Friday, who did not find anything sinister. He had a three hour hack on Sunday. We had a bit of a Swiss cheese moment, unfortunately (Swiss cheese being the Mountaineering Scotland metaphor for a bunch of small things going wrong that lead to epics).

We were out with my friend on her horse, and OH on foot.

The first hole in the Swiss cheese was my friend's horse getting a rock in her foot and friend getting off to deal with it. Her mare's ground manners are dubious at best (another hole?), and while OH was trying to hold the horse, she stepped on his foot.

The second hole in the Swiss cheese was OH taking a short cut home because his foot was sore.

The third hole was us continuing on with the original plan and not following OH on his bailout route. Friend's horse is not great at being lead horse, either.

Fourth hole was us ascending a steep rocky trail that mountain bikers love bombing down at 100mph. There is a 45 degree slope above you, and a 45 degree slope below you. The only safe way to do this on a reactive horse is to have a foot soldier or a bombproof horse well in front of you. We had neither. Fin and I were in front. And a mountain biker appeared, hurtling towards us. Usually, he's fine with bikes but they come at you on this with a speed and inevitability that does not feel good. He froze, then spun. Sort of shoulder chucked the mare, who was right behind him. We both stayed on. Then he cantered about 10m down the steep rocks until I could pull him up.

Luckily my friend's mare did not move a muscle, and Fin is smart and surefooted enough to do a crazy maneuver like that and probably not kill himself (or you). But Jesus H. Christ. Swiss cheese.

Today, he wanted nothing to do with leading on a hack. More setbacks.

Hermosa, however, remains awesome.
 
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I've been chasing winter Petplan qualifications with the big lad. We have been consistent...consistently changing out of the canter half pass and extended canter on the right rein ? I think he wants to move up to AM now ? If only we could get changes on demand and not just when he feels like things need spicing up. Still, we have the scores we need. And I can't complain too much because if you'd asked me even 4 months ago I'd be saying I doubt we will get back out competing and I'd be happy just to hack ?

My project-1.jpg
 
My motivation has taken a bit of a nose dive recently.

I had hoped that the 4yo would be ready to aim at prelim next year but it’s looking like he’s going to be a slow burner - no surprise really as he’s blimmin’ huge (currently standing at 17.2/3 and not long turned 4 ?).

Raz is *still* rehabbing. We’ve just introduced canter so still a long way to go before we can do more than going around the outside of the arena.

New boy Cas has settled in well. First outing this weekend so ?? I don’t screw it up. Hoping we’ll manage to get our pet plan qualification sorted between this show and the next one in 2 weeks’ time so we can aim towards advanced and PSG next year.

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DabDab said:
Out of curiosity, what is scentwork for a horse? (Assuming you're referring to a horse not a dog in that bit of the sentence)
Click to expand...
It’s similar to what people do with dogs, except less sophisticated. If you have a look for Rachëal Draaisma on YouTube, she’s the one that came up with an idea of scentwork for horses. Apparently people have tried to train horses to find missing people too [x].

I can’t set a footstep trail so I’ve been following canine detection-style training more, clicking for a nose touch to the scented item and developing things from there. I do it as horse is a big sniffer anyway, and the game provides an authentic reason to be long&low.
 
stangs - that sounds like a fun thing to try with a horse! I know mine have amazing noses...they can sniff out a treat from the other side of the yard.

I think the usual weekend thread-starters have been pretty quiet / distracted hence lack of threads. Anyone can start one and thank you @racebuddy for getting it going again!

We've been fairly quiet on the outings front but, very excitingly, I picked up my new horse lorry (? van?) from Freddie Gover a couple of weeks ago. It's absolutely beautiful and the living is extremely comfortable. Having negotiated four different motorways and Bracknell on the way home, I turned a corner on the narrow road outside Nicky Henderson's yard at Seven Barrows and a car was approaching a couple of hundred metres away, on a section with no passing places. I tucked in as much as I could and stopped, I've been down there plenty of times in my 7.5T with no issues so wasn't concerned at all. The approaching car made absolutely no attempt to slow down, clobbered me with their wing mirror and scraped all down the side of my brand new lorry, and kept driving ?. Luckily my OH was in the car behind me so did a quick u-turn and chased the driver down - turns out he's a lad at Henderson's and we know a few people there so he's not getting away with it!

Things then went from bad to worse as I loaded Chilli for practice, he slipped and refused to go anywhere near after that. Thankfully I managed to get Michael Peace out a couple of days later and Chilli is now very relaxed about loading and standing. We have our first proper outing to my trainer's on Friday so fingers crossed it goes smoothly.

Other than lorry drama, Chilli's been going well and we even attended a poles / small jump clinic with Jonty Evans at my yard last weekend, which was excellent!
 
Ooh BM, new horse - did I miss the introduction? Always fun to hear about new steeds on the block ?

Sorry to read about sick notes though, horses and people.

ETA just seen j1ffy’s post - that’s so gutting about your new lorry. I’d have been livid. Very fortunate that your hubby was able to catch him up, what a stinky thing to do.
 
stangs said:
It’s similar to what people do with dogs, except less sophisticated. If you have a look for Rachëal Draaisma on YouTube, she’s the one that came up with an idea of scentwork for horses. Apparently people have tried to train horses to find missing people too [x].

I can’t set a footstep trail so I’ve been following canine detection-style training more, clicking for a nose touch to the scented item and developing things from there. I do it as horse is a big sniffer anyway, and the game provides an authentic reason to be long&low.
Click to expand...

Thanks for explaining. I'm sure people would be interested in posts on that - It's something that most people won't have come across
 
I don't do showing in winter. Trying to get a hairy native ready isn't worth it to go to a youngstock show on concrete. I won't show or judge on straight concrete with no covering.

So I spend my winters racing. And summers ? Last weekend was supposed to be my weekend off but I was away racing wed/thur/fri/sat so didn't get my half day that week (I clipped 17 horses between mon/tue) then I ended up working on Sunday to clip another 6 horses for racing this week. Including the wee dude (who I am not friends with right now ?) I have away with me to Sandown just now. Mon/tue this week was spent clipping another 18 horses. I left at 11am wed morning for Sandown. So yesterday was quite like a day off! I still had the 2 horses to do all day and ride one out but other than that I had nothing much to do. It was great! Today the wee horse runs at 3pm so I will be on the box for 4pm and heading up the road. Should get home about 1am. Then I am back on the yard tomorrow to clip another 8 that run sun/Mon. Honestly it socks being the only person on the yard that clips well enough and quickly enough to get through such numbers. The other lass who can clip very well takes 2 hours to do a horse so she doesn't have time to do any along with everything else she has to do in a day. 2 other girls can clip, they take about an hour 20 to clip a horse and don't do the best of jobs but they are serviceable clips. I can strip one out in 35-40 mins hence why I get through so many. It does but me because I can't do a thorough job of grooming down and hot clothing after. It is literally a conveyer belt through my clipping box.

But fingers cross the wee dude today doesn't kamikaze himself down the railway fences ? he owes me a win after biting me on the back yesterday whilst hot clothing him!
 
Joules sale tomorrow lunchtime, and a lesson at 4pm. Then Xmas shopping with Mum and sister on Sunday. :)
Bookings went on line for next years clinics so booked in for Jan, Feb and April :)
 
I’m spending 2022 backing young ones so nowhere to go/no competing or lessons to do as they are mostly too young/inexperienced. Lots and lots of hacking going on here, with sprinklings of arena hire. Planning to get the one who is nearly ready out to compete from January. My mare wants to go too - she is a fantastic mum’s help but not really built for competing. We can do small jumping things to keep her happy I guess!
 
Bernster said:
Ooh BM, new horse - did I miss the introduction? Always fun to hear about new steeds on the block ?
Click to expand...

I haven’t really posted about him, bar a quick ‘yay, he’s finally here’ when he arrived. ?

I unexpectedly had to semi-retire my top horse just after the summer so Cas is his replacement, so to speak… I don’t think Raz is complaining ?

First show tomorrow so will hopefully have some pics/vids to share.
 
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