Here is a picture of my boy. He learned on Sunday how to use a hay net and so enjoyed himself that he stuffed his tumtum with so much hay he had no room for his tea! (a handful of finely chopped carrots.)
On Thursday the blacksmith is coming to shoe Corrie and Maud and trim Ruth and Bazil. After that the Vet is coming to "chip" the Dartmoors and give Bazil a 6 month check up and make up his registration papers.
I see it is over a month since I last wrote anything on my blog. There are a couple of reasons for this, one being work & working weekends, the other being the weather was not always too nice for pictures and I don't like having pages of text only - I like pictures too.
So in the past month, what have I been doing? Well I took Maud and Mum back to Ingleston House for another Riding Club dressage test. This time the event was indoors. This was Maud's first experience of being ridden indoors and took to it rather well. The only scary experience was someone running down stairs from the commentary box just as she was passing and the other was the two "poo" buckets sitting at either side of the arena. By the way, Mum and Bombay did not to bad a test, although Mum was still very uptight and so could have performed better if she could only loosen up a bit.
I had thought I would introduce Maud to the sport Le Trec, I don't remember if I have mentioned this before or not. Anyway, at the end of September, Chris, Mum and I travelled down to Biggar to a Le Trec demonstration day. We were the only people there not to have brought their horses. I thought by bringing Bombay & Maud to the event, they would hold everybody back, but none of the people there had done Le Trec before either! Anyway, the Le Trec people hold a Winter Series and it is open to anyone.
The Series is basically a collection of obstacles that you would come across in competition and allegedly out hacking too. The main aim is actually obedience with the obstacles, and I think Maud would enjoy using her brain and completing the tasks asked of her. The idea is to collect as many points as you can, but you have the choice to complete an obstacle or not and at whatever gait you are comfortable doing it at. So with Maud being very green, we will still be able to compete, but at her own pace and hopefully by the end of the series, she will have allot more confidence in her own abilities and improve in her points. I'm really looking forward to having a go. Unfortunately, the first event in November clashes with work.
Now that Pavla is safe in Prague and Maud is back home with me, the only work we can do is road work on a Saturday. (I ride Bomabay on a Sunday). So no schooling, no circles for balance, no jumping just walk & trot on the roads. So I decided I had to do something about this. I had read in the Native Pony Magazine that a woman who produces Welsh section Cs was in the same position, but she took her animals to riding club for their schooling / learning sessions, so I joined Kilmacolm Riding Club to do the same.
On Sunday Maud and I attended our first Prelim session with Sue Melady, which was great fun. The hour passed in a flash. There were only four of us and two watchers, and the chitchat between everyone was entertaining. Little Maud was completely knackered after her session, in fact to be honest she gave up about 15 minutes to go by refusing to move a muscle! Although very tired and still had to hack back to the lorry about half a mile away, I think she really enjoyed herself. The next session is in two weeks time - I can't wait.
Well tonight is Puppy School. Yip, Imogen and I are still going on a Tuesday, trying to be more obedient etc - a loosing battle of course. But the puppy really enjoys the outings and it does help her socialise with other dogs as well as people.
Christmas is getting unbearably closer, and I can feel a slight panic inside. I have thought of an idea for this year's Christmas Card, but it is weather depending etc.. So they say there will be snow after Christmas which is good (if it is dry snow), and hopefully it will kill off the bugs in the soil etc - makes everyone healthy and happy.
