Following Bob's adventure to the local show the other week, I have decided to book him into a pole clinic hosted at the same place as the show but run by my instructor, eek!
I am a bit nervous about it as it is on grass with multiple horses, so I'm hoping Bob will settle fairly quickly, but if not, I have my instructor and pal in the same group for some help! I want to get him out and about but ease him in gently, so a few clinics will be a good experience for us.
I have worked hard with Bob over the past few weeks as he reverted to being nappy towards poles and jumps (not good when we are planning to go to the pole clinic!). It initially started from spooking at the trees by the car park end of the arena, then he got worse and he napped from the arena gate, refusing to go any further forward. Taking him back to basics, reducing the number of poles and changing what we did each lap of the arena seemed to distract him, although it did take a few sessions!
The persistence paid off, and slowly each session, he got better until he happily trotted and even cantered over the poles without napping or freaking out. Once he did it right, he got a lot of praise and I then had him do something else to finish off, so he wasn't overloaded. He was doing so well! The other morning, I put a small jump up and he was back to his usual self with no napping and happily jumping. He can be a difficult horse at times when he goes through one of these phases but luckily, these are becoming less frequent and our relationship is helping maintain his confidence.
I have got good news on Autumn; her wound has now fully healed, so she can get back into full work again; Yay! I did a short lunge session with her to see how she was feeling and she is raring to go again. I will start her back on pole work as I have noticed how well she and Bob have been since I incorporated it into their weekly sessions. I have her planned for the pass wide and slow ride coming up in September, which I am looking forward to. Let's hope there are no more injuries from dominance battles between her and Bob now!
The heatwaves have been a pain again and meant I had to exercise the horses in the early morning (much to Bob's displeasure), but luckily the horses seemed to cope better with the heat this time round, as luckily, it wasn't as humid. They enjoyed their daily showers to cool them off (yes, even Bob!) and loved the extra fruit and veg put in their soggy dinners.
The grass has been suffering quite badly, but we have just had rain and more forecast, so fingers crossed the winter paddocks start to grow again, as I am sure we are not the only ones panicking for winter - it hasn't been nice hearing the grass crunch under our feet. We will have to learn a rain dance so we will have a few showers regularly over the coming weeks!
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.