After the worst winter I can remember and first winter with the horses at home, with no facilities, i had to give up, keep the horses in most of the time and abandon riding for 6 weeks.
With the recent loss of my thoroughbred and a jumping clinic booked, I had a what the hell moment, jumped on him Wednesday - pretty hair raising ride, jumped on him Saturday - slightly less hair raising and off we went jumping on the Sunday.
Just to refer back to an earlier blog, Travis does not jump and I had completely abandoned the idea in about August to focus on his dressage.
Turns out my what the hell moment paid off and the boy was amazing.
We kept the jumps small, and gradually built the jump numbers up and within 45 minutes we were jumping a 70cm course with fillers!
Maybe he could be that all rounder after all, but time to get back to those 20m circles!
Once again I threw Arlo in at the deep end, affiliating him purely for the Arena UK second round show, and once again he pulled it out the bag. How lucky am I to have such a wonderful little horse? We haven’t really competed this year. I don’t really compete over the winter, and also my horsebox was away for repairs up until the beginning of June, so I had no transport even if I’d wanted to.
With the dry ground we don’t seem to be having much luck with shoes, as little madam managed to pull both her front shoes off within 12 hours the other day! We entered the arena with two shoes on for a schooling session and left it with one missing (took about an hour to find it). Then that afternoon, as I went to put some hoof ointment on, I looked down and had to double take, thinking I was looking at the wrong hoof. But, no, the other shoe was missing too.
After having a long wait and some lunch at the onsite café, it was time to get ready for the Joan Wolfe Overall Supreme Shetland Pony Championship. I got changed out of my usual showing outfit into black trousers and a maroon top with white spots, as you are expected to be a bit more “bling” in the evening.
We were all set to go for our next outing, and were super excited. That was until I heard the dreaded clunk of a loose shoe! I checked it over, praying it wasn’t too loose, but, nope, it was going to need a refit.