Lord Ben and I managed to qualify for ROR Novice Dressage Championships at Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials, and I am not sure if someone thought it would be hilarious to have two days of retrained racehorse on grass arenas. I guess it will prove how well we have all retrained our racehorses!
Through glassy eyes, and lots of back space on the keyboard and a few months later it has felt like the right time to talk about losing Travis.
With the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, I felt compelled to write something pertaining to Her Majesty.
On hearing the sad news, I wanted to pay my respects by laying flowers at the gates of Sandringham.
Following Bob's adventure to the local show the other week, I have decided to book him into a pole clinic hosted at the same place as the show but run by my instructor, eek!
I am so happy and relieved that we finally got the big lad out to a show (and came home uninjured - result!) The perseverance of practising loading him worked. We made sure we did it at least three times in the week leading up to the show and took him for a short drive on the Saturday so that he was used to it.
The next day, Wednesday, was the day before the show and we donned our hi-vis again when in the showground. The ponies were mucked out and had their hay and waters replenished and next on the list, was a walk around the showground to get our bearings as the classes were early the next day.
We are still learning as we go, in relation to all the field maintenance and keeping on top of the ever growing weeds. It is such tough work but gives a good sense of achievement as we accomplish it! We did need some help recently though, as we needed to change the rear tyre on our mower.
I realised I haven't really mentioned Django for some time. Sometimes it can be hard to think of things to write when he spends about 90% of his life sleeping, but in reality we have been doing lots.
The big day had finally come, and after a lovely restful night’s sleep (not!) we went to the yard to load up and head off. A quick flick over to remove the dust and shavings from the ponies and then tail bandages were applied before we loaded them up.