I am currently lightly backing my three-year-old American Quarter Horse before turning him away for the winter.
In my previous post, I explained the setbacks this year, and frustratingly I had to start the process much later in the year than I’d anticipated. But things were going well, too well…
Ride number five and it all went a bit wrong. We had done lots in the field, and bit of hacking and our first small jog under saddle in an arena. We went back to the same arena to try to get some more jog (jog is trot to those who don’t ride Western) and it really wasn’t our day.
Django was very distracted, but they aren’t robots and we can’t hide from those days, so we carried on anyway. My instructor decided it was best to use the lunge line in case she needed to “hang on”. Little did she know just how much she would be hanging on!
Every time we asked for a jog, Django was feeling a bit spicy and doing a little hump – a small, laughable hump. Only this time, he lost his front leg and did a stumble on the front as he humped with the back. Now only on one leg, and still very physically downhill and very unbalanced with the weight of a rider, over he went, landing on top of me.
Thankfully, my instructor had the weight of his head and shoulders, so he wasn’t able to completely roll over. Instead, he decided to catch my knee and chest as he stood up, and he isn’t light! With no real damage done to me, my focus was on leading Django around to make sure he was OK, settled and hadn’t lost any confidence from the fall.
The following day I got right back on and he didn’t seem at all concerned, so fingers crossed this hasn’t affected our journey, although I am sure the clocks going back might!
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.