Christmas and the New Year fell nicely this year to create two long weekends of bank holidays. Obviously the horses still need looking after every day. I offered to do one of the livery horses, Harry, to enable his owner to go away for Christmas, and I also did evening hay and feeds for the owner of the yard’s horses so her grooms could have the afternoons off. So all in all, I was going to have a busy time.
I enjoyed not having to worry about the time when being down at the yard. I did treat my three – Mabel, Diva and Julius – to a carrot or two on Christmas morning. I almost had a little disaster when happily sharing out the parsnips when I realised I hadn’t left any at home for my dinner!
Harry’s owner very kindly did my three for a couple of days after Christmas, so I had two days totally horse and pony free! Flora, my little rescue dog, certainly enjoyed having a lie in and being the centre of my days!
Over the New Year weekend, I once again was seeing to Harry. He is such an easy horse to handle and isn’t messy in his stable, so not difficult to muck out. I took Flora down to the yard with me, and whilst I mucked out, I put her in the stable where I store my hay so she could have a sniff around in case there were any rodents lurking. When I glanced in to check she was okay, I discovered her investigating the very top of the stack!
For competition purposes, all horses’ age is as of January 1st no matter when they were born. It is hard to believe that Mabel is now twenty-four years old as I have owned her since she was five, or that my little baby Diva is now five! Julius is maturing nicely at eight years old.
Diva, Mabel, Julius and I wish you all a very happy and successful New Year!
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.