I had planned to boast to you of the wonderful weekend I had jumping Turnip and Red at Brecey. However as I frequently find it's best not to make predictions of success. Last Monday Red and Turnip visited Gavray and jumped very well, I arrived home glowing not just because of their perfomances but because Mr Gavray had invited me to use his holiday gite and stabling in exchange for working some hours once I have relocated back to England. By Wednesday morning I had truly lost that glow as I c... Continue reading ...
Okay so now I'm going to do a little bit of the catching up as promised.......... Firstly Le Haras du Pin, after several hundred phonecalls the dogsbody finally managed to discover that every tuesday throughout February and March a young horse clear round showjumping day is held, from 4yo's in the morning to 6yo's in the afternoon. But noone checks the age or passport of your horse, so it basically means the jumps go from smaller to bigger. They informed us on entering that the height of the... Continue reading ...
 Don't know what's been happening round your parts but “Oh my!” the sun has brought out everyone's loving round these parts. Turnip is always your man for a lick if you're after affection, trouble being his licks lead to nips, lead to bites,lead to full on head lock grabs. This bullock is soon to experience this delight but I left the photos here, it just gets ugly. Turnip tries to drag him through our very safe and sturdy garden boundary fence so we'll finish here, all sweetness and ligh... Continue reading ...
It may be necessary for you to refer to last week's post to really get this photo and realise I haven't lost my marbles just yet. You may recall on my first day of breaking Monty I introduced him to being ridden by a bear, it just happened the bear was to hand. I have a decent selection of large fluffy toys used for breaking and jumping and lots else besides. Most purchased for a pound a piece, well a euro actually at the local junk shop.
Since Monty was accustomed to bears it only seemed ... Continue reading ...
About a week, ten days ago I was busy minding my own business mucking out the stables in the dark, about nine at night.(The horses are all living out at night in an effort to maintain all round sanity, sense for them, less work for me). Suddenly there was an almighty crash that made the very rafters shiver and had me running for the door, scanning the skies for evidence of the burning inferno from the bomb just dropped. But no, nothing to be seen.
We are informed by those that know, if inde... Continue reading ...
So I have been sloppy and idle and off the ball in not posting in a very long time. Infact all the time I've had good stuff to talk about I haven't bothered! It has been a long year in many parts, I feel exhausted from being here there and back here again, over and over. BUT NOW I'M BACK HOME, HOSED AND VERY HAPPY. Over the next few weeks I'm going to take a little while to catch up on the blogs, a little bit for you, if you are so kind as to be reading it- THANK YOU. A little bit for me, so I c... Continue reading ...
 Turnip has another name, (Mr. Potato Head) due to his rather lumpy head with rather a shortage of brain cells. or that's how it seemed to be the first year we had him. He has a rather elegant head now, it never grew with his body and it even look like some of the cogs in his brain have begun to turn. He jumped his first clear at the Renarderie on thursday and he wasn't mad either. I expected him to have a paddy as the Renarderie is practically home turf to him. I expected all the new jump... Continue reading ...
I had bit of a confidence failure the weekend before last,took Neddy down to Avranches to do 1m05 preparatoire. Had one look at the jumps under lights on slippy ground with a water jumpa and lost my bottle. I swear my shoulder was throbbing in anticipation of another tumble. Being too scared to ride is not a good place to be but it obviously shouldn't have been as I'd only jumped once since my crash and Ned has never seen a water jump. I needn't have worried; as luck would have it when I took N... Continue reading ...
 Since I've still been hurting from my crash it seemed a good reason to get some dressage practice in, I can't imagine another scenario where I would willingly forfeit an event or even showjumping to spend an entire weekend doing dressage.( I'm not knocking dressage? I'm sure I'd be hooked if I could pull off all the fancy moves.° So a fortnight ago we set off early saturday to Brittany with Turnip and Charlie for a premier annee dressage class. I had rather high hopes for Turnip as he was so ... Continue reading ...
 No, the stag's not real, but he works pretty well from a distance. I'm sure he would more than do the job of spooking the horses on the cross country course which I suppose is the aim of him as he is positioned in the thick of it, amidst the very beautiful undulating parkland of the Haras du Pin. Poor old Muddy was fooled even close up but then she hasn't the sharpest eyes, poor love. There is a distinct lack of Mini in the picture, our black and tan Jack Russell as she, little cow had disappe... Continue reading ...
It's not all bad being poor, sometimes it makes you a little more creative. As we came to the end of our haylage it seemed an awful shame and waste to be throwing away all that plastic wrap,so with a few bits of black and green wrap, some Alfa-A bags, old rubble sacks, salvaged pallets and a stapler we got into Blue Peter mode;  Turnip and Neddy really appreciated 'these ones we made earlier'! It all paid off, Ned and Turnip went showjumping at Gavray last weekend and I was very pleased with both... Continue reading ...
I write this post, even though it was over a week ago that Neddy let me down, quite literally. Last sunday Neddy went to Brix with Turnip. Brix never was my place for pot hunting and I really shouldn't go, but since it hardly ever has any competitiors being stuck way up the Cherbourg peninsula and they put in such a lot of effort to host the competition it seems a shame not to put in my bit of effort and go. I should have known better last week though, nothing was going to plan, I think my b... Continue reading ...
Why is Neddy looking all flashy and dressed up on the beach? Aahh uurrr Well............... Neddy was supposed to be competing again on sunday but it errh didn't turn out to much, just past Avranches Mick put the address in his sat nav (on the new all singing all dancing phone to replace the one Doughnut chewed up) and discovered a second 'La Fleche'. All my niggles fell into place and the bizarre disjointed conversation I'd had with Mr. Fagnen regarding the competition. Yes, we were headed out... Continue reading ...
At the weekend I decided to show my dedication by driving 65miles to Rennes to take part in a dressage 'entrainement' competition. Along the lines of a local unaffiliated dressage comp you'd have to drive twenty minutes down the road for in England. BUT this is France and training competitions are not come by easily. We really went for Ned as I was rather hoping he would go to his first trial in a fortnight and I thought he could practice his fancy new moves in an actual arena.I showed him th... Continue reading ...
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