So; Portugal did not go quite to plan. Although the horses travelled well and performed great, a trip after a fence resulted in me breaking my collar bone on Dinky in the 6 year old class. Through no fault of her own, Dinky lost her footing on landing and went down on her head..... So i had to hand over the reins of all the horses to Trevor Breen (who was delighted to have an extra 3 to ride each day bringing the number of horses to be ridden each day to 11!)
Luckily Dinky was able to continue competing and gained her confidence back reasonably quickly which meant she had enough results to qualify for the 6 year old final. A clear round in the final with a fence down was good enough for her to be placed in the 1 metre 30/ 1 metre 35 class. I was very pleased with her and as i write this she is currently being inseminated at our vets to have a foal while I am out of action.
Ria my 5 year old (who i had reservations about) was a complete star in Portugal. Clearly Ria and the sunshine go well together. She jumped just 3 times each week which is perfect for a young horse. She never would have seen a ring so big, such scary jumps, speakers blaring music or the huge screen with her name on it when she was jumping. However you would think she was a pro and was regularly in the money as well as muscling up hugely over the 4 weeks. Again a clear round was good enough in the 5 year old final to be placed. It was great experience for her to be warming up in busy arenas and hopefully being stabled next to the older international horses she has picked up all sorts of tips from them!
Wendy proved to be a little tricky for Trevor at first, obviously missing her mum. What a typical girl! After a week of bonding they were flying- jumping clear rounds in the International classes. As i have mentioned before she is affected by stress when travelling and any sort of change and can some time result in her going off her feed, however she came back from Portugal extremely porky!
So although I had to miss a few weeks jumping, i was pleased to see how well behaved they were for a complete stranger riding them. When they returned from Portugal they had a holiday in the field with the other horses in Ireland.
I have various mares going in foal to a range of stallions which i am very excited about, as we love having foals at home. The young ones are all loose jumping well at home and the 2 year old stallions are off to be broken in 6 weeks which should hopefully put a few manners on them or they will have to have the 'snip'........
In the meantime I am continuing with physio and hope to be back in the saddle ASAP!
Hope your all enjoying the lighter evenings and warm weather
Caroline x
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Wednesday 4 May 2011
Thursday 17 February 2011
Preparing for Portugal
Hi everyone,
Hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year! I certainly did! The horses all enjoyed their annual xmas feed full of carrots and apples ad even a likit :)
As it's a new year it means business! I am currently writing this from Ireland where my horses are based at the minute. We arrived here at the beginning of January which involved a long ferry over the Irish sea in very bad conditions. It was Ria and Dinky's first time on a boat but they took it all in their stride. I have based myself here purely because of the facilities here at my partner's stables are more suited to getting them super fit and keeping us all dry (yes a massive indoor school)! With the weather being so cold and frozen in England i needed a base to keep them in full fitness as we are heading off to sunny Portugal for 4 weeks jumping the middle of February. As well as the brilliant facilities i get to hack around the Irish countryside with the jumpers doing 3 mile circuits up and down hills.
I haven't done any shows out here but have been hiring various indoor and outdoor show centres for the day. This has been incredibly beneficial, as the young horses start off spooky, so can jump around smaller courses and then build up the height and technicality of the courses as their confidence grows. In fairness they have all been very well behaved. Wendy has been popping around 1m40 tracks sweetly, Dinky 1m25 and Ria has been improving (slowly) around 1m15 tracks. The biggest problem i am having with Ria is she has grown enormously and therefore is very weak in her back end. She tires very quickly jumping, and to help this i have been trotting and cantering her up big hills to help build her back end muscles.
Unfortunately for me, Chester has been sold to an Irish Young Rider this month. They got on very well and she aims him to jump young rider classes at Dublin International Horse Show- so good luck to them both!
I have 3 days left here in Ireland before heading off to Portugal and have a lot left to do..... clip, pack, clean, organise myself and the horses. In total we have 11 horses going to the show in Portugal. This involves travelling back to England, staying overnight, getting the ferry from Dover to calais- staying over night in France, driving to Spain and staying there and then eventually ending up in Portugal! Hopefully it will be hot hot hot!
On this note i better go back out and feed the horses their dinner otherwise i will be in the bad books!
Speak to you from Portugal.
xx
Hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year! I certainly did! The horses all enjoyed their annual xmas feed full of carrots and apples ad even a likit :)
As it's a new year it means business! I am currently writing this from Ireland where my horses are based at the minute. We arrived here at the beginning of January which involved a long ferry over the Irish sea in very bad conditions. It was Ria and Dinky's first time on a boat but they took it all in their stride. I have based myself here purely because of the facilities here at my partner's stables are more suited to getting them super fit and keeping us all dry (yes a massive indoor school)! With the weather being so cold and frozen in England i needed a base to keep them in full fitness as we are heading off to sunny Portugal for 4 weeks jumping the middle of February. As well as the brilliant facilities i get to hack around the Irish countryside with the jumpers doing 3 mile circuits up and down hills.
I haven't done any shows out here but have been hiring various indoor and outdoor show centres for the day. This has been incredibly beneficial, as the young horses start off spooky, so can jump around smaller courses and then build up the height and technicality of the courses as their confidence grows. In fairness they have all been very well behaved. Wendy has been popping around 1m40 tracks sweetly, Dinky 1m25 and Ria has been improving (slowly) around 1m15 tracks. The biggest problem i am having with Ria is she has grown enormously and therefore is very weak in her back end. She tires very quickly jumping, and to help this i have been trotting and cantering her up big hills to help build her back end muscles.
Unfortunately for me, Chester has been sold to an Irish Young Rider this month. They got on very well and she aims him to jump young rider classes at Dublin International Horse Show- so good luck to them both!
I have 3 days left here in Ireland before heading off to Portugal and have a lot left to do..... clip, pack, clean, organise myself and the horses. In total we have 11 horses going to the show in Portugal. This involves travelling back to England, staying overnight, getting the ferry from Dover to calais- staying over night in France, driving to Spain and staying there and then eventually ending up in Portugal! Hopefully it will be hot hot hot!
On this note i better go back out and feed the horses their dinner otherwise i will be in the bad books!
Speak to you from Portugal.
xx
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