A different perspective
Sunday was another busy day spent jump judging at one of my favourite events, Wooroloo CNC. I would have loved to compete there but Coolie has done 4 events this year on hard ground, and I would rather save his legs for the Perth International Horse Trials around the same course later in the year.
Hubs suggested we put ourselves down to jump judge and we had a good day watching the horses gallop around XC. There were a few mishaps but overall it was a relatively smooth day. It was interesting to watch all the grades go around, from 65cm all the way up to 3*. Sadly I didn't get a chance to walk any of the courses, I really wanted to get around the 105 to see what I would be up for.
Sunday afternoon I had enough time to clip both of the horses. It is still really warm here, 25C for the foreseeable future (rain where are you?!). Coolie was hairy despite his early clip, hopefully he feels more comfortable now. I was really hoping I wouldn't have to clip Henry at all, but he was starting to resemble a fluff teddy bear so it had to come off.
To my knowledge, Henry has never been clipped before. I decided to see how we went and if he wasn't going to have it then I'd ring the professionals (armed with sedation). I showed him the clippers and he was sad they weren't edible. I turned them on and he wasn't bothered by that either. I slowly introduced them to him and rubbed them over his body. He stepped away because they tickled him. We repeated it a few times and then he just stood and ate his hay while I got to work. Easiest baby horse ever!
Henry now sports a nice Irish clip. He couldn't hack having the clippers near his face, and it's a bit rough around the edges but he was such a good boy having it done. I'll try and tidy it up during the week.
This week I'll be making sure Henry is ready for his first dressage training day. Hopefully we will be able to canter in the test but it's a very relaxed day so I'm sure that if we just need to trot that wont be a major issue, I'll just let the judge know before we go in.
I've got itchy feet to get back out eventing, we have to wait tot he end of June to get back out but I know the break will do Coolie good. We have a few dressage and show jumping days before then to really got some polish happening. Since Henry's massively successful first outing I am itching to get him to a competition. The local pony club has a combined training day so I think I will take him there since he is familiar with the grounds.
Hubs suggested we put ourselves down to jump judge and we had a good day watching the horses gallop around XC. There were a few mishaps but overall it was a relatively smooth day. It was interesting to watch all the grades go around, from 65cm all the way up to 3*. Sadly I didn't get a chance to walk any of the courses, I really wanted to get around the 105 to see what I would be up for.
Sunday afternoon I had enough time to clip both of the horses. It is still really warm here, 25C for the foreseeable future (rain where are you?!). Coolie was hairy despite his early clip, hopefully he feels more comfortable now. I was really hoping I wouldn't have to clip Henry at all, but he was starting to resemble a fluff teddy bear so it had to come off.
To my knowledge, Henry has never been clipped before. I decided to see how we went and if he wasn't going to have it then I'd ring the professionals (armed with sedation). I showed him the clippers and he was sad they weren't edible. I turned them on and he wasn't bothered by that either. I slowly introduced them to him and rubbed them over his body. He stepped away because they tickled him. We repeated it a few times and then he just stood and ate his hay while I got to work. Easiest baby horse ever!
Henry now sports a nice Irish clip. He couldn't hack having the clippers near his face, and it's a bit rough around the edges but he was such a good boy having it done. I'll try and tidy it up during the week.
This week I'll be making sure Henry is ready for his first dressage training day. Hopefully we will be able to canter in the test but it's a very relaxed day so I'm sure that if we just need to trot that wont be a major issue, I'll just let the judge know before we go in.
I've got itchy feet to get back out eventing, we have to wait tot he end of June to get back out but I know the break will do Coolie good. We have a few dressage and show jumping days before then to really got some polish happening. Since Henry's massively successful first outing I am itching to get him to a competition. The local pony club has a combined training day so I think I will take him there since he is familiar with the grounds.
Henry looks great in that clip !
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