Travis has been with me for 2 1/2 years and in every single, possible, imaginable way been the hardest horse I have ever owned! I bought him as a 15:2hh Irish Cob, hack. This is exactly what i wanted, something to wind down and enjoy while progressing in my career and bringing up my son. What I actually bought was a newly broken, now 16.1hh Shire x Thoroughbred, who is a complete stress head, with a magnesium intolerance and a digestive condition which means keeping weight on him is always a challenge, alongside the fact he is still growing! He has had 2 hospital visits due to colic, a sticky stifle and even a pulled hamstring from rolling over his bucket in the stable. Anyway, final after the longest and most expensive learning curve I seemed to have sussed what makes him tick physically and emotional, and somewhere, just somewhere are the glimpse of a gorgeous and talented horse!
So here I am, with a green horse, back out competing! Our aim for the next 2 years is Dressage, with the immediate future goal of being affiliated. Due to his size and lack of balance, without this established ground work, our jumping will not progress- although we dabble in it now and his enthusiasm and natural ‘pop’ is exciting, so I hope for a long term goal of low level eventing.
Just to make my life a little harder, I am so lucky to recently have the opportunity to keep my horse at home, the idea of waking up and drinking my morning tea while watching my horse graze is every little girls dream, however it has come at the expense of having no schooling facilities, just a few cones and an uneven grass surface BUT still totally worth it. With the help of Annelise and A* Equestrian and lots of school hire (which is an added bonus to getting miles on the clock for Travis) nothing is going to hold us back!
To put a face to a name - a little before and after from when I first got him to now!
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.