The tail bag

Because Taani is a grey *sigh*, and because she will only be doing flat classes i decided to invest in a tail bag.  I went shopping and came home with a black rustly synthetic one. Hehehehe.

A little history Taani hates rustly noisy things attached to her or her rider, so i knew this was gonna be interesting.

She actually allowed me to put her tail in it, shock horror!

Then we went for a walk, she was walking ok till it hit her legs, so she started kicking it, (hehehehe) then she tried to run from it, luckily i had her on the lead so was able to calm her down quick smart.

We took her back tied her up and chopped the end so it wasn't too long, then took her for a walk and a trot and it no longer was worrying her so off to bed she went with a nice dinner.

She doesn't like the thing i can tell you that :P but she is putting up with it for us, just shows what a good girl she is. :)

QEII training day

Yesterday was our second QEII training day, we picked up a friends daughter and her horse on the way and me up with perf there. I also got to meet Skrippy and Kaycee so good to finally put some faces to names.

Me and Amy had a blast, got over a few tricky jumps and Perf made me go over a few scary jumps luckily my wee horse is a star and pulled us through. :D

We still couldn't get over the BIG ditch, although we wont be competing that level for a while and so i'm hoping we can get used to ditches at a smaller size for a while, she now jumps the 'other' ditch without too much of a problem so im very happy with how we're progressing.

Next outing will be Western Hills which will be Taani's first outing

Float Practice

Well today after Nicks hangover wore off we picked up the float and headed down for float training with Taani.

Taani hasn't left the farm (by way of floating) in about 5 years. She has a show in two weeks, so we thought we better see how she is considering she was always trouble to get on in the past.

I bought her and Amy out of the paddock cause i wanted to see how they float together, since Amy can get a bit bossy.  We tied Amy up and led Taani up to the float, after a few hesitant steps she wandered in no problem!  So we kept her there for a few seconds then backed her off and booted her up with her floating boots.

Then we tried to put her back on. Well she was giving us one chance and that was it! It must've taken us about a hour to get her back on we tried guiding ropes, a tickly dressage whip, and a tasty bucket of feed. In the end she went on without any props just me at the front and nick straightening her up from behind. So 2 to us, 0 to Taani. :)

We then put Amy on beside her, she decided to fluff around today the little tart and wouldn't go on without some coaxing from Nick behind her.

We took them for a drive around the valley and they both behaved beautifully and stood nice and patiently to back off and did that like proper ladies, so all in all a successful day and they got to relax in their paddock afterwards with a nice bucket of feed each.

Next weekend is the last QEII training day, which looks to be a mini boardie get together, and the saturday after that Taani and Amy will be heading out to Western Hills Spring Show for Taani's first Show in ages her and Jessie will be doing some flat classes while me and Amy do a nice ring two day of showjumping for the start of the season.

QEII training day

Well i took amy along to the training day at QEII, it was a beautiful sunny day and the ground was very nice for jumping.

I went along by myself, absolutely shitting myself aswell. Not long after we arrived i met up with some friends who i was able to ride with yay!

I started looking for the smallest most basic jumps and after getting over a couple i was jumping the big jumps and the others were using us as a lead over the scary jumps cause amy was pretty much point and shoot all day.

I was sooo proud of my little girl and everyone around me said dont sell! Little did they know it was going to be my deciding day on wether i kept her or not, so since it all went well, my little firecracker will now be staying with me.

We will be starting the season doing pre-training aaaah! at perfs instruction and are hoping to be at training by the end of the season.  I think ill be growing some balls fast and we gonna need to work on Amys flat work.

This season's plans

Yes i know i have actually made plans!

Blondie will be shown as a lead rein pony at a few local pc shows.  

Jessie and Taani will hopefully do some pc level flat classes

Now i have had a few people come see Amy and as each one ends up not really being suitable for whatever reason, and the show season quickly approaches i get the urge to keep her and grow some balls to do some more jumping.

I do actually enjoy jumping but the big jumps scare me, and i've been thinking if the horse can jump the bigger ones happily why change?

Then we come to a slight dilemma, i will have 3 competition horses and 1 double float. Well ODE's put Blondie and Taani out so that will be easy, and ill have to carefully plan the others and take either Taani and Blondie, or Amy by herself cause i don't think Taani will handle floating with amy as she can be a little bossy to those below her and taani's quite a girly girl so would prob get her knickers in a twist. lol 

Well as this all progresses i will update in the meantime the first outing for me and Amy will be the xcountry training day at QE2 on the 31st of August (as long as the weather is nice).

Now these will be a minimum of pre-training level and i've only ever jumped intro xcountry, so this will be the start of my ball growing experience, wether it continues is another story.

Crap weather

Well i have hardly ridden in the last 3-4 weeks and starting to get withdrawal symptoms!

I had last friday off but only managed to get all four's feet done, managed a small ride on the sunday and its been raining or i've been working the rest of the time. :(

This sunday is supposed to be fine yippee, i've got someone coming to see Amy (she better be on her best behavior) and ill be worming, and starting the dreaded job of grooming out winter coats and trimming/pulling manes, tails etc.  I must get brave and try the clipping thing sometime in my life. lol

As for today i'm going to brave the freezing cold and showers to move my horses from their hill paddock to back across the road, because they're getting bitchy all being together and Amy's still far to light for my liking so needs more grass.

Then i have to repair winter covers and swap back to synthetic rugs for blondie and taani to stop anymore cover rub because they're supposed to be going out to shows this season.

Gray's road arena 06/07/08

Today i met up with Perf at the arena for some sale pics, it was freezing cold, windy, a completely new environment, we had kids riding around on what looked like a ride on mower screaming and Amy couldn't have cared less.  I'm such a proud mummy. :)

We started off with me warming Amy up, let her get used to her surroundings nice and relaxed with a familiar rider.

Once Amy was nicely warmed up and settled Perf jumped on and took her over some jumps, i was so proud of my wee horse, she was such a good girl, and had a blast jumping the big jumps.

I am extremely thankful to Perf for helping me out and i owe her a HUGE choc fudge slice :)