Brave boy!

Took Carlos to an arena hire today, its a local arena so it's just a 15 minute hack mwanigg we can walk over and walk back as a great warm up and cool down. 

It's was beautiful on the way there, rainbow in the distance and although it was drizzling a little we couldn't feel it.

As we arrived at the arena he took in the new sight well, usually a very spooky horse that uses anything as an excuse to spook he took me by surprise when he didn't spook at much at all.  He just got on with what he was asked.  We had a little school in trot and canter then I did three laps of trot with 1 minute walk break before changing the rein and doing then same on the other rein.  I then repeated this in canter and found it quite hard work myself. So hopefully it will help both of us.

It was amazing getting to use such a fantastic arena.  The length allows me to do his interval training on a good surface.  They have a really good range of jumps so I will also make use of those!

I was in the arena no more than 20 minutes and we headed back home.  Just as we headed off their drive the heavens opened and the wind came at us.  Carlos was absolutely amazing the way he dealt with the weather that was thrown at us, naturally he wanted to put either his head or bum straight towards the wind rather than it hitting him sideways.  He prance most of the way back but he did as he was asked when needed and I honestly think I've I'd been on Lady or Bella both of those would have ditched me and took off to get away from it. 

The rain was blocked out a fair bit as we were reaching the field due to where its positioned which we were very grateful for.  As soon as I got back to the field I went straight to the car boot as we were passing it and swapped over his saddle with his rug to warm him up.

He enjoyed a feed, some carrots and some scratches before heading back into the field with his friends. 

Over the moon with how brave he was with what was thrown at him today. 

NAF Muck Off - No rinse stain remover

I've been meaning to do this review for a while now but never remember to take photos!  When I arrived to get Carlos ready to take him out to a showjumping competition I managed to put it right to the test and remembered to take photos along the way!

So when I arrived I had this to deal with -

I had no idea if it would work in his mane but he's mane had been on the same size that he's laid on and was also covered in stains so I gave it ago. 

NAF Muck Off is super easy to use, you simply push the button which creates a form.  Add it straight onto the stain or via a cloth and simply rub it in. I leave it to work it's magic for around 5 minutes which gives me time to boil the kettle and get some warm water to use on the cloth since it's still quite chilly.  Then you simply use a damp cloth to wipe over where you put the Muck Off and once it's dried your good to go. 

Because I was unsure about whether it would work in his mane I used what I felt was quite a bit but it didn't even look like I'd used any when I looked at the bottle later.  Over the moon that I didn't need to bath him when it's chilly and will work super well now he's back out 24/7 to a field and I don't have anywhere to bath him.  It's a massive help for doing their faces although I forgot to do around his eyes. 😆  Your horse will really appreciate you not having to use a lot of water on their faces and you have no worries about shampoo getting into their eyes.

NAF Muck OFF is available in most local tack shops for around £10.  

5 stars! Highly recommend.

Our First Showjumping!

Carlos and I headed to our first showjumping yesterday and I'm still beaming from ear to ear!!  Carlos being a very spooky horse usually refuses to go over one pole on the floor so I've been gradually building him up and I felt it was time to try out the real stuff and get out to a competition.

The aim of the day was to get him over the fences and hopefully get a confidence giving round.  I planned to enter the 50cm and enter it again HC if needed but as soon as I did some warm-up jumped I felt as long as we got over the first fence in the course we would hopefully be ok.

I'm over the moon that I've worked out how to ride him so he's not thinking about stopping, there were some super scary fillers and although they weren't under the fences completely they were still heading towards the middle of the fences so he definitely could have taken a look.  However, the biggest spook I got was coming around the corner from one over to fence two when the inside turn was close to fence four and he looked at the fillers there. 

In the 50cm we had to do the jump-off straight after the first round if clear and silly me forgot where I was going.  However, Carlos seems to have a naturally fast canter when jumping and is quite agile and we were able to get some nice tight turns around a couple of fences making up some time to take 4th place!

In the 60cm, he absolute flew.  He knew exactly what his job was and took on every jump.  In the jump-off, we did the same turns and because I didn't have my moment of hesitation forgetting where I was going like I did in the 50cm we managed to take 2nd place. 

Arena Hire - Jumping Fillers

Took Carlos and my friend Natalie with her horse Benjy along to a local arena to try to get them both over some fillers as they're both spooky horses.  I'm absolutely over the moon with Carlos, I only had one stop which was my own faults as I gave him a rubbish line into it and also only one pole down. 

I've been feeling the best way to ride him to get him over scary fences is to canter in and drive with my seat and although it's all a little zommy and not so controlled that way...it definitely gives me the upper hand over preventing him stopping. 

Spring is in the air!

A little video of the boys feeling the joys of spring!

Shelley Wilson Cavaletti Clinic 27.02.2020

Carlos was a star in the cavaletti clinic last week!  He had a tiny little look at the raised poles when we were first to them but he pushed through them so I was over the moon.

We had a fab session as I was joined by three of the girls from the yard, so it was lovely being around people I actually know.

Shelley had some great route through the poles set up and really kept the four horses thinking.  Carlos even did a super job of cantering through one of the combinations without trying to break to trot.

Will Murray Simulated XC 16.02.2020

Everyone kept asking me if I was nervous, but strangely enough, I wasn't...not even for the travelling bit! I expected the nerves to kick in once we went into the indoor and saw the jumps but even when Carlos nearly had a heart attack and ran away from some fillers and poles on the ground it thankfully didn't faze me.  I've never been a confident jumper so I was finding it pretty strange. 

Although the lesson was over show jumps the idea of it was to create the technical combinations you'd find out on the cross country course.  This included bounces, skinny fences, ditch and a combination of fences strung together. 

Carlos started off with his usual spooky self, thankfully I wasn't the only one in the group this time how needed things simplified and the girl in front of me had a refusal for the first fence we tried so Will had us go over it first half on the ground, which I didn't expect Carlos to be as much of a wimp with that but he still had a big look at it.

Once they were confident from both directions with the jump as a normal straight bar we jumped that again and then had to turn left into another fence off on an angle.  Carlos had a big look at this but he jumped it from an almost standstill.  We then had to come back over the first fence and carry on with another that was off to the right this time.  Thankfully Carlos had no issues with that.  Because of his look at the second jump Will had us come around and jump the combination again which Carlos jumped very well.   

Then we had a bounce introduced, Will simplified this but Carlos thankfully barely looked at it and popped on through.

Listening to our next instructions 

After that came the big test.  Even though throughout the lesson we stood amongst the jumps to be other the way of others Carlos didn't like going too close to the fences of a batch of poles on the floor.  Will said to allow our horses to look at them if we felt it was needed...I did but I also didn't want to get into a fight with him for just taking a look.

Straight away Will simplified it as the rider in front of me had issues, so once we came to it the first filler was taken off, the second element was the 'ditch' which was a bunch of 5 black and white poles together which then lead off to a filler which had also been dropped at one side.

Straight away Carlos backed off and I just couldn't get him in front of my leg in trot so when he got to the 'ditch' he stopped and ran backwards.  Will spent probably a good five minutes with me working out ways so I could win the situation.  Eventually, Will took the first two poles away making them smaller and I managed to get him over them but he stopped straight away at the filler.  I wrapped my leg on and he popped over it. 

I kept getting wrong off Will for saying 'good boy'  even though I was rewarding him for going forward which is what we were aiming for, Will said it could make him think he's done what he needs to do and make things worse so not to reward him until we were over all three.  Going to find that hard but will try to remind myself of that. 

As I cantered back around, Will snuck the two poles that he'd taken away back into the 'ditch' and Carlos didn't even notice.  So he popped the filler up at the end to the cups and we jumped that with only a slight hesitation.  Then he popped the first filler on for us all and we all had to get it simplified again.  Silly horses. 

After the confidence was built up with the first filler back on both cups we all had a course to complete ourselves.  Carlos was super and felt like he was really enjoying it although he did land on an incorrect leg twice and I had to do a transition back down to trot then back to canter so it didn't feel as smooth as it could I was absolutely over the moon with him!  Will is an excellent instructor for helping out young/green horses.

Todburn arena hire 05/02/2020

So yesterday I took Carlos along to an arena hire which had an arena eventing course set up.  I thought it would be a good chance to see what he would be like since I've yet to really give him a proper jump and knowing from my grid work clinic he was taking advantage of me pretending to be scared I now know to ride him differently and wanted to test it out ready to do some showjumping soon.

I made sure I had my whip with me but once we got over the first few a friend who also hired with me seemed to need it more so I let her borrow it.  He gave everything a look as we approached it but I rode him into them defensively and he got the point that I was planning on getting over them whether he liked it or not so he started going nice and forward with little hesitation. 

As we tried our first water trap he popped over it with the pole on the floor with no issues at all, as we approached it the first time with the pole up he hesitated but still jumped it however when the first jump and last jump were put back up as jumps (it was set up as a triple and we had the poles down, to begin with) he knocked the first jump and refused the water jump.  After having the pole put half down so I could push him straight over it we approached again which jumped fine.  After that, we approached again and he took me by surprise tanking off into it, leaving me with very little control.  He hit the pole on the first fence and ran out at the second leaving me flying off him and going splat onto of the jump wing with Carlos looking down at me.

After that however he jumped some even scarier fences with the xc fillers underneath so overall I am over the moon with him.

Here's a little video of our session including the fall haha -

Pole work with Shelley Wilson 30.01.20

Our first little trip out of the year was in absolute gale force winds which made the whole of the indoor arena rattle every few minutes making all the horses jump!  I was debating on not going because of the wind but I'm so pleased I did as it was another fantastic session which got both Carlos and I think the whole time.

Shelley had us all work throughout different sequences for the poles laid out.  There were so many different ways each little section could be tackled.

In the end, we did a few of the sequences we had done throughout the session in whole and alone and since my hubby was there watching I actually got that on video.

What's been going on?

What's been going on? Lots and also nothing depending on what you want to know.

Carlos had December off due to weather, me being ill and then by the time all that was sorted Christmas was around the corner so I figured he might as well have the rest of the month and I didn't have to worry about trying to keep him ticking over when I was working (including Christmas day 😢).

He had the month up the field with Alfie, only coming back when they got their feet trimmed.  The following week I brought them back to the yard, ready to crack on with Carlos.  

We did a fair few hacks and the odd little schooling session and Carlos then came out of his stable lame one morning.... 

Turns out he had a stone wedged into his hoof at some point and it had gone into the sole so he was naturally a bit ouchy.  A week later however he was feeling good again so off we went.   Had some good long walk hacks with short bursts of trot, even found a one were we had a little canter!   Then a few days later I found him with a rather fat leg, panic set in thinking the worst and thought it was a tendon but I also knew he had mud fever and I had just clipped his legs the day before so I could treat it better so had my fingers crossed it was that causing it and the following morning all four legs were blown up! Bless him but at least I knew it was the mud fever then, I changed the treatment for it and carried on working him to help get/keep the swelling down.

Thankfully he's not had fat legs since so hopefully it will stay that way.  We had a little play over a jump that was in the arena a few days ago and he had a massive pop on him once he got going, I think once we get him over his spooking and realise it's fun he will be cracking jumping.  🤞

I've been lucky that he's kept his fitness up quite well on his time off, I had a dressage competition and a grid work clinic booked in which I cancelled so we had more time and tomorrow were off to a polework clinic so I'm excited to get going out and about again.  

It's been a looooooonnnnnnngggggg month.