After my painful dismount at the show, I decided that we would have a couple of weeks away from competition and start having a few lessons in between. Annoyingly injuries, plans/events and money had meant we hadn’t been able to schedule a lesson in for over eight weeks. I didn’t even realise it had been that long!
As the days get longer the horses and ponies begin to lose their winter coats. It is the light that triggers this rather than, as you would assume, the warming weather. Mabel is usually the first to begin to moult in earnest, whilst Diva very sensibly waits a little longer, but by the end of February both are doing their best to cover me from head to toe in their cast-off hair.
After the kerfuffle we had the week before with trying to get Bob out to a show, I’m pleased to say we managed it for the next one, hurrah! He still pranced about a bit on the yard but was not as naughty and didn’t have zoomies up and down the yard this time!
The recent prolonged cold spell brought numerous challenges to those of us with horses and ponies. Suddenly, providing the basics of care was so much harder – the biggest of these probably being water supply. Horses need a lot of water per day and can get impaction colic if they don’t receive it.
As I write this blog, both Diva and I are on a mission to lose some weight and get fitter for the coming show season. I have started to lunge Diva daily, something she really enjoys and if I don’t put a lunge rein on her, she will trot and canter around quite happily with little or no encouragement from me.
What a difference a few days makes in the weather. I quite enjoyed the hard frosts as the horses came in relatively clean and it gave them (and me) a break from the sloshy mud, although after it defrosted it was a bit squishy for a time. I do have to say though the evenings being slightly lighter for longer is nice as is the dry weather – roll on spring!
Florence, Mabel’s daughter, is currently furthering her education whilst Michelle is busy with training her point-to-pointers. I would say Florence has gone to boot camp, but the photos and videos we receive show her clearly enjoying herself and being pampered.
I have a wonderful new addition to the family, another ex-racer from the same yard as Ben and he really has made quite the entrance to the family. On the night I was due to see him, I was staying with my work in Derby and he was in Lincoln.
Happy New Year Everyone! We hope you had a nice festive and New Year break. We got struck down (and I’m still currently sick) with the flu bug going around! However, being the stubborn madam that I am, I didn’t let that, or a sore back stop me too much over the break - although I did have to pull out of the show I had planned to attend with Bob (but we’ve rescheduled to another show in 2 weeks’ time instead).