Wow what a busy time I have had in the last week or two but I’m sure it is only going to get busier as the season kicks off. Since our win at the dressage competition, I have continued our preparations for the forthcoming season which is in T minus 3 weeks and counting!
I have had one jump session at home with two of the horses since our lesson with Lucy Thompson at Littleton Manor. I decided to just focus on the points Lucy picked up. So with Crysto I worked on the quality of the canter, ensuring he was properly connected from front to rear, 100% listening to me and not looking at everything else! This worked well and he made some lovely jumping efforts which I was very pleased with. He also felt like he was much more relaxed which obviously helped and he didn’t touch a pole!
With Salto I worked on the canter as well but on compacting it a bit more together to encourage Salto to take more weight behind, therefore making a nicer shape over the fence and leaving all the fences standing! Salto has a habit still of becoming rather strung out and flat which is very common with the exracehorses. It is something that can definitely be worked on and improved but like most things takes time and patience. I also tried a different bit as I am still having problems keeping his head up and preventing him leaning, so I had a Waterford mouthpiece in this time. I think it helped a little but still have more to try.
The day after jumping, the snow came so I was glad I had done it then. I do like the snow for about an hour, but after that the fun soon disappears as getting the horses done before and after work and even exercising is double the effort! The horses were kept in their stables for the first day but after that they had a couple of hours out in the snow per day until Popps decided that she would get her legs caught in the electric fencing, causing a nice inch long cut on her fetlock. I am keeping my fingers tightly crossed that it heals with no problems, so there has been a lot of Hibi-scrubbing and Derma Gelling going on!
The next thing on the agenda was renewing my British Eventing membership for both me and the horses. This is always a costly time for me, but fortunately my Christmas present from my dad every year is mine and Crysto’s membership so that always helps, leaving me to just pay for the Salto and Popps. Of course there is also mine and Crysto’s FEI membership to add as well, but fortunately that is somewhat less if only competing in this country, which we are at present. So with the memberships renewed, I have now entered my first event, being Isleham, in Cambridge on Sunday 4th March; Crysto is entered in the Novice section and Salto in the 90 section.
Another amazing opportunity which has come my way and that I am absolutely overwhelmed with is that I am now officially being supported by Barnsby for 2012 and beyond. I am honoured that Barnsby have chosen me to join their amazing team of sponsored riders which means that all my horses will now be sporting Barnsby saddles and bridles. I am seriously looking forward to things to come!
I have had two visits in the last week, one from Robert and the other from Anna from The Pure Feed Company. Anna brought with her the Pure Weigh-bridge so I had an exciting day weighing not only my horses but my dogs too! I chickened out of weighing myself though!
I was quite surprised how easily the horses took to standing on the weighbridge, but I guess as they are all used to going through water and over ditches etc, standing on a green pad really wasn’t that terrifying! I have never had this opportunity before and it really was gobsmacking to find out the difference there is between the weight shown on an old fashioned weigh tape which both I and many other people use and the weigh bridge.
I have previously weighed Crysto using the weigh tape which showed him as being 432kg, which I did think was a little low. However when he was weighed on the weigh bridge he actually weighed 515kgs! This just goes to show how many of us could be feeding and worming our horses using the wrong doses as there is nearly 100 kgs difference that was shown today. I guess the Moto of this Blog is if you have an opportunity to weigh your horse properly using a weigh bridge then please do it, don’t rely on a weigh tape as it is far from accurate! The weigh tape however can then be used after you know the exact weight to monitor if your horses is gaining or losing weight.
From the results we saw from the weighing, Anna has suggested upping all the horses feeds just a little, but for different reasons. Salto and Popps can afford to put on a little weight but Crysto could use a little more feed for energy as he is competing at a higher level, so requires more energy and stamina for the longer courses he has to complete.
Because of this, Anna is planning to return in a couple of months time to weigh them again. This will allow us to see the difference a little extra feed has made and by then I will also have a few runs under my belt, so we can gauge whether their feed needs to be altered in any way, to enable them to perform to their maximum.
This really is exciting stuff and I can’t wait to see the results with the help and support I now have around me. I would once again really like to thank everyone who is now helping me reach my goals of riding at the very top level of Eventing on Purely Ex-racehorses.
Until next time when I am off to have my horses measured up for their new Barnsby saddles…
