Hacking, group lessons and some ad-hoc cross-country

Last week, I returned to the land of working people – I mean, I do work, but at home, which doesn't always require similar effort as going out to an office. I have landed a part-time job doing what I do as freelance anyway, but this job takes me to an office 2–3 days a week, so time to ride in the daytime will be reduced a little until July (lucky evenings are getting longer..!). I need to get back into the swing of things, as after a whole-day meeting in the new job on Friday I just about managed to drag myself to the yard and mucked out Rainbow, but didn't have the energy even to lunge her... She'd been larking about in the field the whole day, so I was greeted by a horse wearing mud stockings! Luckily this year we seem to have avoided mud fever. I have been extra vigilant, keeping on top of brushing off dried-up mud each day and I also periodically apply a bit of Sudocrem on clean skin, under fetlock, in the pastern area, to restrict any bacteria getting hold.


We have new friends who we go out on hacks occasionally – Anna and Piglet. Piglet is actually Rainbow's stable neighbour, so she's not a new acquaintance as such, but Anna has started loaning Piglet fairly recently, when Piglet's previous loaner went to uni. We went out on Thu and it was a glorious day... Took some sunny pics:

Saturday I figured it would be good to join a group lesson after a long break from them. I don't think they're necessarily so useful now that Rainbow and I are a little bit more advanced than going around in a circle each horse nose-to-bum, but they're sometimes a bit of fun and I think it's a nice social for the horse, given that they're herd animals after all...

Well, Rainbow behaved but it was a bit of a battle the whole hour as she was quite taken by the trotting in one mass, so was pushing forwards like freight train. I had also decided to take the nose flash off her bridle, as I am not sure she needs it. It was only put on her nearly two years ago as she was opening her mouth a lot when I first started riding her... It might have been even caused by my inexperience which made her open her mouth!  But I don't think she gets strong, so I think I won't be using the flash – perhaps only if hacking out, but doubt it... Back to the lesson... I had to use all my skill to get her to soften a bit and to collect herself. It only happened intermittently, but when there was a moment we didn't have a horse right in front of us, she instantly relaxed and accepted the contact better. So that was good.

After the lesson I turned Rainbow out to the paddock with her friend. They have another paddock at the moment as their usual paddock has been water-logged and Rainbow also busted through the fencing while I was on Christmas hols in Finland. But, unfortunately, Rainbow has decided to be a bit of a rebel and she has now escaped two or three times from the current paddock too... Not quite sure what she does, but the general thought is among people at the yard that she either goes over a cross-country log jump, which is in one corner of the paddock, or over the gate. I think it's the cross-country log... Serves me right for teaching her to jump well! So, now she's banned from going out with Zara as she leaves Zara upset in the paddock when she saunters off... And the big field might be closed for a while to let the ground recover, so I am at a bit of a loss where to put her to graze at the moment. I might try erecting some electric fencing again, especially over the log, but will see...

How NOT to jump at show jumping competition!

Last Sunday I did something I hadn't thought I'd do a while yet: took part in a 'proper' SJ competition. Up until now we've taken part in two 'very novice' competitions. 

These 'proper' competition fences had fillers on them, plenty of oxers, and some were 'planks' – and we also had mid-winter sun shining through the windows on some of the jumps – the horror! 

However, if someone had told me even 6 months ago that I would be attempting 60cm class in SJ, I would have laughed. Rainbow has done them but I haven't, and it's been a big deal to have plucked up courage to even attempt it.

This time no rosettes but bit of embarrassment and a slightly twisted knee, which I am pleased to report is actually better already. 

Notes from the day: We had too long a wait in the warm up – note to self – do a quick warm up and put your number up on the board as soon as so you don't have to wait forever your turn and therefore give yourself (and your horse!) time to think about what you're about to do. 

There's nothing to it than let the video do the talking... 

And for those watching with a keen critical eye, YES, I wobble a lot in the jumps and frankly am all over the place most of the time ... I am aware of the evident need for more lessons, thank you :)

Gymkhana

Our friend Becca is moving to Cambridge and as a final farewell she organised us a session of gymkhana games in one of our standard Tuesday night lessons. 

Games included: zig-zagging around cones in various gaits, with and without stirrups, egg and spoon race (!) – the eggs were hard-boiled for safety – in both walk and trot, dropping a tennis ball into a bucket and racing back to the finish line ... Our group was divided into two teams and all competitions ran as relay.

It was so much fun. Here some, very blurry, pictures our instructor snapped while we were like 10-year-olds at the pony club again. 

Sarah and Sampson speeding to the turnaround point.

Red mist

Becca and Yogi vs Elina and Rainbow

Leggy Becca riding what looked like a Great Dane... No, it was Yogi!

Combining my two passions: horses and eggs ;)

Steady on...! No one actually dropped one single egg, not even in trot... Well-balanced riders!

Sarah and Sampson homebound with the egg.

Becca and Yogi dropping a tennis ball into a bucket.

Barbara and Fern doing the same...

Team Bubbly waiting for their turn.

Tom and Flint

Extended trot home

Becca on a Great Dane

Last race included getting off the horse and running home. Barbara and Fern.

Becca and Yogi

Sarah and Sampson

James Bond... Oh no, it's Tom and Flint!

Rainbow didn't get this. She walked home.

The whole gymkhana group.

Six-month update on shoeless life

Well, I have had to keep my fingers and mouth in check from typing out (or saying out loud) sharp responses to some blogs (and people) whose blogs or musings I have recently been reading/listening, which very confidently acclaim that working horses should be shod and any horse that isn't can't truly be ridden or worked to the same extent as their shod counterparts. They also say that modern horse is so developed and far-bred that it cannot cope without shoes.  Funny that we have managed to breed horse so far, yet scientists say the modern horse is genetically no different to the ones that roamed the earth tens of thousands of years ago. The same can be said of humans, according to science, that we are genetically 100% still the same as our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Very little, if at all, can genetically change in mere thousands of years, so a few hundred years of horse and human is a tiny speck in the grand scheme of things.

I am sure those people don't want to hear my opinion or will ever agree with me, as they have decided their way is the correct way and my way is not the correct way and, actually, what I am doing is somehow 'unnatural'... So let's let pictures tell the story in more ways than (my) words ever could:

July 2013 – when the shoes came off

January 2014 – same front feet today 

July 2013 – right front 

January 2014 – the same right front 

January 2014 – right hind 

January 2014 – hind feet

Apologies for the blurriness of some pics, it's very difficult to hold a hoof up and snap a picture single-handedly on a mobile!

This horse is a working horse that is ridden/exercised 5–6 times a week, on surfaces varying from soft school surfaces to gravel and extensive roadwork while out hacking. Week in. Week out. She is not a paddock decoration, as often it is suggested by those who like to see their horses in shoes that shoeless horses can't lead a normal working life. 

She also gets out to the field or paddock several times a week to 'be a horse'. She is a keen show jumper as well... She is less keen with dressage, but obliges ;). I would like to have enough courage to dabble at some cross-country one day.

She is fed a diet that promotes hoof health – it is low in sugar and starch, but high in fibre. She is a good-doer, so her main source of nutrition is mix of hay and haylage – one hay net in the morning, one in the evening, with some 'self-foraging' in the field. 

Once a day she gets a little scoop of Speedy Beet, to which some standard pony nuts are added (mainly for palatability) and also a handful of micronised linseed (it's nutritious and highly palatable without sugar... smells nice too). In that mixture her vitamins and minerals (including 10ml of salt) are mixed in. I give her Pro Hoof by Progressive Earth which is a 'pro-hoof' supplement that contains everything in the right quantities and no extra bits which I am paying the earth for but that aren't needed. She also gets one carrot or an apple chopped up in the feed (again, mainly for taste).

I used to feed her Feedmark Barefoot Formula and Benevit Advance as sources of vits and mins, but they are not cheap (in the long run) and the products, even when 'pro-hoof', don't contain the sufficient amounts of key vitamins/minerals, (e.g. if you look at the required quantities for magnesium and do your research on the minimum quantities needed, you will see) and they seem to contain a lot of 'cheap' ingredients, like micronised linseed and calcined magnesite to bulk up the mix. 

Then, I also throw in a one-to-two 50-ml scoops of calcined magnesite (aka magnesium) to top up her magnesium intake – especially important in the summer months when grass is rich and if your horse is turned out. Magnesium is harmless in the sense that the body excretes any extra it doesn't need, so you can't give too much of it. Also magnesium is a natural calmer, which also is the main ingredient in many off-the-shelf calmers. Worth keeping in mind when digging deep for your next tub! Especially when you read the next paragraph...

I buy a 20kg sack of micronised linseed and a 25kg sack of calcined magnesite from Charnwood Milling – their website is basic but customer service great and delivery costs only around £7 anywhere in the UK (however, you should see their website for costs, not just rely on me!). The price for a 20kg sack of micronised linseed is around £21 and for 25kg of calcined magnesite £7. Needless to say, it will take me ages to go through that quantity with one horse, as I only give each around 50–100ml per day! So, cheap as chips. I keep the sacks in my shed at home and top up from there to tubs which I keep at the yard.

With this combo of fairly simple ingredients we have transformed from shod to shoeless – and actually without any fuss. And it must be mentioned that I have Rainbow's hoofs trimmed around every six weeks by Tim at Performance Hoof Care. 

Six months on, Rainbow is a happy, regularly ridden and worked horse, who is calm and grounded, I think even more now without shoes, as her 'senses' are not impaired by metal clamps, so she can feel the ground and can trust her own feet, making the need to be flighty a lot less. We are not looking back.

And finally, to those who think that shoeless horses can't perform, take a leaf out of this Italian's book who won the Puissance in Olympia in December (also note the simple tack, a snaffle bridle, no martingales, etc.). Luca Moneta rides and competes his horses using natural horsemanship methods.

Olympia: Horse leaps over 7ft wall at Puissance event

Wetter than wet

I read many blogs, a lot of them are horsey blogs from Finland. Many of them are currently complaining about the lack of snow and wishing it would get nice and dry, snowy and cold soon. Having spent Christmas in Finland, I saw a black Christmas. Not a very usual occurrence, even on Tampere level, but has happened a few times in the 2000s.

I have really had to resist commenting on various posts which complain that 'all the fields/paddocks are muddy' or 'the horse is constantly muddy and wet', I've wanted to say, 'welcome to my world!' - this is the reality for the equestrian in the UK, pretty much from November to April. Fields are currently wet and flooded, the erratic galey weather (maybe you've seen it in the news) causes havoc up and down the country... Riding out is not pleasant or recommended... A friend and her horse got surprised by a freak hailstorm while hacking out last week - they stopped traffic and the horse was still shaking when they got back to the yard.

I'm lucky to be residing at a yard with an indoor school. And I think if I ever was to change yards, this would be fairly high up on the list of must-haves. It's an invaluable thing to have when being outside is just madness but the horse needs to be exercised. I'm lucky to have a horse that is fairly chilled out in her nature, so when the clouds close in and going out is a no no, she doesn't get too fresh when cooped up in the stable. Thank goodness for that. I just dot around some 'snack' hay around the stable keeping her occupied and moving a bit, and she's quite happy.

However, it doesn't mean I like to keep her in any more than I have to and I believe horses are more resilient than we give them credit for, so letting them out in the wind and rain is not that detrimental, as long as they have the opportunity to come in after a while, or have shelter, and are rugged up appropriately (this doesn't mean all horses need to be rugged up though!).

Because of the above, we have mainly been riding in the school. We were meant to go out for a hack with friends on Saturday, but the weather was so awful we opted for a lesson instead. Managed to join an 11am group lesson with an instructor I've never had before. It was a fun and challenging lesson; rode most of it stirrupless and did walk-to-canter transitions! I was a bit hesitant about cantering without stirrups because hadn't done it since I was a kid and, for some reason, thought it'd be harder than trotting without stirrups. It was easier! It also turned out that Rainbow does very nifty walk-to-canter transitions, she got the gist straightaway and did them really purely. The downwards transitions were harder, as they probably usually are, so something to work on, but overall very positive. My legs, on the other hand, afterwards, we're a bit sore from the stirrupless riding...

Yesterday we had a jumping lesson with another friend. It was fun, even thought I felt a bit more nervous again, having had a nearly a month off jumping, after the SJ competition we did before Christmas. Rainbow went beautifully and I even asked my instructor to put one of the fences up a bit. I asked to put it up by one hole but she did two... The height was something around 65-70cm, I reckon. Not high to some but challenging enough for me, and very rewarding when R just flew over and I didn't even notice the difference.

New Year

I popped in Finland for a bit of skiing up north, in Ruka, and spent the Christmas at parents' in Tampere with my other half. It was a lovely, peaceful Christmas.

Rainbow had most of the 10 days off, though she was ridden by a friend a couple of times, who took R out for a hack, too.

Rainbow, usually a mild-mannered lady, had decided to turn into a bit of a hooligan over holidays (while mummy was away) and deemed her paddock buddy boring, so busted out through fencing over to the other side where some horses were in a bigger field. Then she refused to be caught, so I gather she spent a stormy night outside (the weather's been awful in the UK) ... Luckily I only heard about it days after the event – as didn't really fancy worrying over it while thousands of miles away – and luckily R was unscathed.

I got back and lunged Rainbow on the first day, just in case there was any 'freshness', but she was her normal self. The next day we had a really nice hack in beautiful sunshine, even though it was a bit frosty on the ground and some bits of roads had iced up. I took R on verges as much as I could when there was clear ice on the road, and she seemed fine. 

This week the weather has been changeable to say the least. I have been schooling R this week in the indoor school and I am pleased that I notice I have made some progress. I seem to be able to ride R and get her to collect herself without the constant need for instruction. Now I just remember my instructors' comments in my head and try to follow them. This also that I have noticed I am not very flush with money at the moment, so have decided to reduce the number of lessons I take. I can ride my horse for free and, after having so much 'intensive' training over the past autumn, maybe it's good to practise those 'lessons learned' and let things sink in a bit. Maybe this is just a sign of me maturing as a rider and feeling that I don't need instruction for every time I mount a horse. 

New Year's Day the rain was horizontal as I dragged my other half to help muck out (I think I was still under the influence of alcohol from the night before, so actually needed chauffeur!) But he obliged and it was nice to have some help. I didn't ride, so Rainbow got a little outing in the back warm up arena with her friend and was then tucked in her stable with hay for the rest of the day while the owner went home and sat by the fire all day watching films. I love TV around Christmas holidays here, so many films and good telly on... Made even more enjoyable after having been outside in the gale and rain. 

Girls' new paddock after Rainbow busted out of the old one (the old one was also like Somme), however, Rainbow jumped over the fence from this one as well this week, so she's not using it now... I think her recent intensive SJ training is useful for her in ways I didn't intend/anticipate... Cheeky mare.

Wet owner and her slightly demented-looking horse.