Sunny September ?

Who would have thought we were thinking of Winter last week.  This week the temps have soared and the horses are moulting like crazy.   In fact I am thinking of clipping them!   Mulligan is going showing on Sunday to the do the Ridden Horse and Veteran Class and I am pleased to say that he is back to his old self.  On Tuesday I went to fetch him in and he came GALLOPING accross the field like a 3 year old skidding on brakes and then towed me up to the yard which was far more energy than I had.

I think perhaps I had just messed up his sleep pattern last week and now he is permanently in at nights and seems very content.   Sadie is due to come in on the weekend and hopefully Dainty will be ok out with the other girls a bit longer.   Its great being able to phase them in like this and set up my routine gradually :)

There is another showing competition later in October which I may take Sadie along to as well as Muls to get her out and about again - she seems to be back to her old self be it a good thing or a bad thing!   Then there is a bit of  a break until Feb so they will just keep quietly ticking over until then.   I think I might get into this showing malarky but will let you know again on Sunday evening.  Its very finicky but I am trying to learn what it is all about. 

TRC - Combined Training

Well we nearly didnt go as firstly Muls has seemed a bit flat and I am full of cold and feeling achey and miserable and then to top it all we arrived there and it started to rain.  By the time we did our dressage test we were quite wet and by the time we got to jump it was pouring and with a combination of neither of us feeling on the mark and the fact we dont have studs I retired after the first three jumps.

Mulls is now in every night to get some routine going and every afternoon has been at the gate waiting.  I cant quite put my finger on what is wrong but I know him and he felt a bit flat so gave him a few days off and then waited to see what he would be like at the show.  He warmed up nicely if a little lazy but nothing unusual here as school work is not his 'thing'.  Enter at A and he perked up and did a lovely test.  It was Prelim 7 which is a nice flowing test and for once I remembered the whole test with the exception of where to halt DOH!  So I sort of stopped between X and G just to be on the safe side lol and of course comment was not quite at G.

Overall comments were ' Lovely horse, very polite but needs to develop softness over the back.  Quietly ridden.'  He is not 100% supple but at his age he still does very well.  We got 65.5% which I was very happy with and put us in top half of a class of 13.

Came out of arena and it was quite dark and wet and I kept thinking lets just go home but I didnt want to feel like I was quitting so we changed tack and did a couple of warm up jumps.  First warm up jump was a cross pole and I am not sure what Mulligan saw but he jumped nearly 4 foot over it.  Second practice jump was an upright and he knocked it.  So we did both a couple more times and in we went.  My number by now had washed off us and I had to go present myself to the ground judge in the car.  It is a lady I know and her husband is course builder and I said to her - look I dont have my brave pants on so just going to do a few - 'Noooo she says you will be fine!' lol. 

Anyway looking like drowned rats we set off :

Jump one - nice and straight forward :

Now jump number 2 was my 'demon' jump.  Five years ago Sadie and I had a spectacular demolition type stop at this jump and at least to day it was smaller and not a parallel - just an upright so we sailed over that

You will have to take my word for it that we sailed over as it was raining so hard Lewis was taking cover under the burger van awning and trying to photograph at same time lol.  Jump three was a parallel at the top of the field and it was getting a bit slippy

We didnt finish the rest of the course - was just too wet and slippy and its not worth asking the old boy to put his back out jumping in that weather.  We had a nice day and we rugged him up and got him on trailer and of course it stopped raining!  He seemed really tired so he is tucked up in stable with a nice haynet.  Going up later to check on him and feed the girls.

Autumn Arrives

I have not meant to abandon my blog but things have been a bit weird at work with threatened redundancies and shortened hours but have managed to keep the horses ticking over.  I decided against going to the cross country day at Hallamshire due to the weather but went to watch some friends who ended up doing their rounds in pouring rain! 

Yesterday we fetched our straw so the two straw beds are now ready for winter having already prepared Sadie's shavings bed a few weeks back.  Have heard that its going to be another bad winter!  Horses are still out 24/7 with the exception of Muls who has the odd night in as there are a few others on the yard that are now coming in at night. Rugs are now medium weight at night and I think before long winter will be upon us.

I have a few days off and am entered to do the combined training this weekend so thought I had better run through the dressage test this morning.  It was great to be a lady of leisure and wonder around the yard without having to look at my watch once!  I did a silly thing in that I learnt half the test thinking I would just get that right and then because its a fairly simple test - I stupidly assumed I knew the rest and of course it was wrong!  So I am now trying to get the right bits done in my head.   Tomorrow we are going to do some jumping practice - my jumping round will be 75cm and want to see if I can go a bit steadier than our working hunter round!  To explain for my non-horsey family and friends - this combined training means I do a dressage test and get scored on that and then do a round of showjumping and the final result is the two added together.

Anyway off to go take Sadie and Dainty out for a hack.