Week of horsing around

It's been a busy week trying to balance work and horse commitments.  I am going on holiday next week, so have been trying to get in the saddle as much as possible before I have to take a nearly two-week break (I am clearly going through a very keen phase it seems)! Not sure if Rainbow is that happy about this 'extreme' riding but I have tried to keep it interesting by mainly doing hacking out with her and friends and not spend much time indoors. The weather, rather surprisingly, has been quite good, so that has definitely been  an incentive for getting out as well... As I have said before, you never know when the heavens will open yet again for months on end, so enjoying it while it lasts.

Monday we went out for a morning hack with our friends J and O. Tuesday I managed to get us on the very popular 6pm group lesson. We did rider 'gymnastics' on the lesson; riding without stirrups doing various legs stretches and bending backwards and forwards. It was rather fun and luckily the horses were very phlegmatic because of the warm and muggy evening, so could happily give them long rein and concentrate on the stretches. After stretching we also walked and trotted around without stirrups. It's really funny how after about 20 mins riding without stirrups one's leg really stretches and when you put the stirrups back on, they feel so short! Even when my stirrups were on what I call 'the long school setting', after a while without stirrups I could have lengthened them two or three holes and wouldn't have even noticed.

Wednesday we went out with our fairly new friends Sarah and Sampson. Sampson used to be my loan horse, so I know him quite well. Rainbow and Sampson really seem to get on well and I feel I have struck up a lovely friendship with Sarah too. We have a lot of fun going out and seem to be on the same wavelength.

Sarah and Sampson

The hack on Wednesday went well – we didn't do a very long one as we only set off around 6pm. Both Rainbow and Sampson weren't very forward going, but it didn't matter too much. We had a couple of spooks from Rainbow when we came across some sheep in an unexpected place and when some children threw a ball in the bushes we were walking past. 

Cheeky Sampson having some takeaway!

Thursday we had another flatwork lesson and it went really well. Practised some leg yielding, just to keep it interesting for both of us. And also did some canter transitions from leg yielding in trot.

What is known as the 'selfie'.

Sarah and I had earmarked Friday for a longer hack and we set off in the afternoon when Sarah arrived from work. The weather had been a bit changeable earlier in the day but settled into quite a nice warm evening. We headed up towards the Churn. When we got up the big hill after the village, Sarah noticed that Sampson didn't feel quite normal. He was feeling lame in trot. I stopped as I'd been motoring on with Rainbow ahead of Sarah and Sampson. And he didn't look quite right. We had a little discussion on how bad he was and if we should turn back, because in walk he didn't show signs of lameness. Decidedly the right thing to do was to turn back and Sarah hopped off Sampson to lead him home. Rainbow was a good girl happily turned around although I could tell she was quite keen to go continue the hack. So we ambled back with Sarah and Sampson.  While Sarah led Sampson, I felt like a mounted police officer giving Sarah and Sampson a police escort. Bit of a shame that our special Friday hack was cut short, but obviously our horses' welfare is the paramount, so it wouldn't have been fair to make Sampson go on. 

Back at the yard Sampson was assessed and he didn't seem too bad. His shoeing is probably a bit overdue, so hopefully the limp will be fixed by new shoes this week. Fingers crossed!

Overall it's been a good week of riding. Today I gave Rainbow a day off and I think she was rather pleased: when I released her in the field she buck-galloped off towards her friends in the distance, cantering past them and did a victory lap around the back bit of the field. Just a little bit happy. :) 

Back to reality

Birthday festivities done and back to reality. When I picked up Rainbow yesterday I wasn't sure what kind of a wild horse would greet me after 4 days in the field, but she was fine. A little bit alert as it was really windy, so she had to do a little spook jump when the bushes moved, but she was a good girl and followed me nicely back to the yard, although none of the others were brought in at the same time. 

I didn't ride yesterday, as had a friend staying over after the birthday festivities and had been busy entertaining at home. By the time I got R back to the yard I just brushed her a bit, picked feet and gave her her evening tea. She was also quite tired and was dozing off when I was brushing her. 

I felt quite tired this morning and was struggling to get up but had agreed to go out on a hack with a friend and be ready at 9:30am. We had a nice hack around one of the usual routes and we had a little canter on the side of the field too. Rainbow was leading and behaved really well again. Brakes worked and she didn't want to rodeo, which was good. I am getting braver ;). I am gaining confidence with her and have actually started to think I might be able to take her out in 'public' soon. I realised afterwards that this ride was the first ride of my 30s...! So here's to more of the same and good times with my pony.

Royal Ascot

Thursday did involve horses but not in the smelly sense I usually get to enjoy them, but from a distance – donning a hat, a glass or two of champers and a race ticket. 

It was my 30th birthday so Tim took me to Ascot for the day. We went there two years ago, to celebrate my birthday, but this time it was just us two and not a big group like last time. Two years ago the weather was really wet, cold and windy, which made everything a bit drab and difficult... Especially when wearing nice clothes and trying to walk across water-logged lawns...

This time weather was ideal, though it wasn't sunny until the evening the still and warm air made it actually quite ideal. We set off from Henley-on-Thames as we were staying in a hotel there. This  meant we could take the train to Ascot and both enjoy a few drinks too.

I bet on all races except one (6 races in one day) and ended up either winning or breaking even on every race, except the last race when my ability to pick winners must have been hindered by the champers. I didn't bet large amounts but won enough to probably come home with a bit more than I went there with. I hadn't studied the race cards hard but had some idea from reading the Racing Post and also backed The Queen's horse, Estimate, which paid out a little as it won the Gold Cup race. I was so pleased for her for her horse winning the race. The large screens replayed her excitement, it was fab.

But without further ado, here some pics from the day.

Racecourse from Grandstand

Ascot Bandstand

Waiting for The Queen to arrive.

There she is!

The Queen's horse, Estimate, won the Gold Cup race.

The Queen saying hello to Estimate after the race.

Race goers

Yours truly

The sun broke out in the afternoon

Afternoon tea at the Pavilion

Not too traumatised by having turned 30 ;)

Some clips filmed on my mobile. 

- The Queen arrives

- Racing

- Singalong at the end of the race day

Happy hack pics

It's looking to be warm and muggy tomorrow and my friend S (who loans my old loan horse Sampson now) has even booked the afternoon off work, so we can go for a longer hack.... Looking forward to it already! Hoping also that R is in cooperative mood and we can try some cantering again.  I have given her a day off in the field today.

We had a lesson yesterday with Claire again and it was good fun, though I felt quite tired for some reason and couldn't really pull my riding together, so it was a bit hard work at times. I think the muggy warm evening didn't help either and R felt quite floppy too. But we did some poles and a little cross poles at the end of the session, which helped us end on a good note and got us doing some jumps! I do love jumping, it's just the nervy fear of not knowing if she'll go over them or not... Totally in between my ears as she has never refused on me yet (*touching wood). So I should just trust her and point her to the next jump!

These pics are from last week, out with Denise and Zara! I will try and snap a few tomorrow. 

Denise and Zara

"Look at the camera!"

Mounted police officer and her trusty steed ;)

Zara's neck

I do have other exciting times ahead as well. I am having a big milestone birthday this week and to celebrate my partner and I are going to Royal Ascot on Thursday, which is the Gold Cup Day - aka Ladies' Day, to watch a bit of horse racing. Have my hat and dress at the ready. Will promise to post on Ascot too!

Well that didn't go to plan

We took part in a dressage clinic yesterday as the monthly unaffiliated dressage was cancelled due to lack of entries, again. Luckily our instructor A had agreed to come over and run a clinic to those who wanted to do something anyway. 

The format of the day was that each rider had 20 min slot and we'd learn the test as we would for a competition, entering the arena one by one, do the test and then discuss details with A, and possibly practise sections of the test or certain movement. 

I was quite excited to take part as thought it'd be good to have a competition-like situation but without the actual pressure (and no plaiting or dressing up!), plus get comments straight after and some helpful tips. 

I'd asked my partner to come and film us and take a few snaps too. Also my partner's sister came along as she was staying at ours over the weekend anyway, and she had not yet met Rainbow. 

I should have taken it as a sign when R retreated to the back of the stable when I whipped her saddle out. She didn't look very excited to work and was actually nearly dozing off in her stable, after the night spent in the field. 


Warm up went fine and she was her 'usual' self; not particularly keen but did what was asked... When our turn was to enter the arena, I decided to walk her through the arena to greet the judges and thus show her all the boards and letters at the same time too. We've never had any problems with them but Rainbow has sometimes gazed at them during the test in the past, so I figured it'd be nice to give her the opportunity to check them out before we needed to do anything. 

Off we went when the bell rang and started the test Prelim 7. Entering the arena at A and proceeding centre line, tracking left at C. Trotted around the arena and go diagonal at F (F X H). Then the show started: approaching H Rainbow decided it was scary and suddenly evaded to the left. So we had to do an extra circle and approach the letter again. We kept circling around and she seemed to get better but then we decided to re-start the test and the next movement was to canter around the arena after a circle. Again around letters E and H she would start evading, so we had to abandon the test and our instructor came out to just help me get Rainbow past the letters without evasions. 

The letters weren't really scary and I am pretty sure she was just finding an excuse to be difficult. We had been past the letters before the test and nothing, so my instructor is pretty sure she had read on my [competition] nerves and decided to play up. We have had a great few months, so perhaps it was time to have a little blip again...! 

It's just typical that just when my other half and his sister are around the horse plays up. You've got to laugh at the timing. R really is a little madam sometimes. 

I do have a video of the whole 'incident' but I don't want to post it as it's out of focus most of the time, so really blurry and because my instructor and I had to get a little tough on Rainbow, the video is a bit shouty and growly – and therefore not very nice viewing. 

I feel that actually having had this problem with her during the clinic gave me a really good lesson and hopefully have eradicated the problem, so R won't get silly again in the arena. Especially during competitions... But we don't train with the letter blocks and the white arena boards, so I did say to my instructor that would like to sometimes set out the boards for a normal lesson as that would help the horses get used to them – so they definitely wouldn't have any excuses to misbehave.

My other half snapped some photos of us, but they're not spectacular. He's not that familiar with the camera and I can't direct him from the saddle, so they are what they are :)... I think I am only willing to publish the one above as the others don't do justice and are blurry.