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.