A couple of weeks ago gave us the first really nice sunny winter's day that we have had, so we seized the moment and boxed up to a friends school, one that wasn't under water!
When Todd was about 4 yrs old he developed a liver infection and it took us the best part of 4-5 months to bring him right. Every year since then, around the end of the Autumn Todd has succumbed to a slightly weird illness, which we have never been able to put our fingers on exactly what it is. He can become lethargic, off his food, can drop weight and condition, cough and is generally poorly in some way or another, we can only assume that the original infection has left him with a weak immune system - which is heightened in the autumn around the time they are changing coats. Who knows, perhaps we will never find out, but with Charlie (our vet friend) being Charlie we have had every veterinary mastermind consulted! Anyhow, yet again just after he qualified for Grass Roots in September last year, he started to lose condition and developed the runny nose and cough and didn't come back into work until just before Christmas!
So that gives you a bit of insight into why the first jump of the year was quite significant. It took a while for Abi to get her eye in, but Todd was on top form! Being quite a chunky horse we have always found it difficult to get the balance between going on enough without it becoming front heavy, unfortunately Todd doesn't have the finesse of the thoroughbred who can skip through the air - we have to rely on speed, impulsion and Todds enthusiasm! Of which, I have to say, was in abundance!
Todd and Abi had their first jump since last September
Unfortunately the English weather is rarely perfect, especially at this time of year, with the sunshine comes the clear skies and frost! So our planned weekend of schooling was brought to an abrupt halt. In an English winter you always have to have a plan B, unless of course you have the luxury of either a smart 'really all weather' school or one with a roof - unfortunately we have neither! and our water logged school had now become an ice rink! So our plans to start on the flat work turned to plan B a nice 2 hour hack.
We are fortunate that at the yard where we keep Todd there is plenty of farmland we can ride on and all was going well until our other horse 'Senate' ( We will introduce you to Senate another time) managed to tread on his shoe and yank it half off. There we were a mile from the yard, with two horses, one of which could not put foot to floor as had a shoe hanging off and nails precariously close to puncturing his sole. Needless to say Mike – Abi’s farrier husband was 40 miles away, so no use at all! We were eventually rescued by Mrs Maxse, the owner of our yard, who is nearly 80! She jumped in her car armed only with a hammer and a pair of pliers and came to our rescue! I suppose being married to a farrier for nearly 15 years has its benefits as Abi whisked the shoe cleanly off and with the ground being so soft Senate was able to pick his way home in not too much discomfort! Nothing ever goes to plan or smoothly with horses!
I leave the horses to Abi through the week as I work full time and with the yard being 15 miles from me, it is virtually impossible to get there in the week. I find it hard enough juggling a full time job, a 10 yr old daughter and a 12.2 pony – oh I nearly forgot the husband as well! So weekends are our only time to work Todd together.
Abi's next task a few days later was a lesson with Steven Mercer, an Aussie show jumper who married a pom 'Sheila ' and has settled here. The lesson went really well - apparently she just needs to slow down a bit and not charge around the arena as if she is on the hunting field! Hunting is Todd's one great passion, apart from beating up his stable mate Senate!
The two have been turned out together and pretty much every time Abi brought them in, there was an injury or two - so we came to the conclusion that we had to separate them otherwise there was going to be a really serious injury - it was a bit like Julian Cleary going up against Mike Tyson, and we knew that Senate was going to come off worse.
Poles are great
This weekend we chucked Todd on the lorry and headed off to our friends school (ours was still under water) to do some 'poles'. I love poles - its amazing that we can ask our horses to jump great big and complicated fences but ask them to canter over five poles on the ground and they trip, fall over, go disunited etc - so I am a great believer in poles on the ground, the more the better!
A while back, over a glass of wine, I had been chatting to Brynley Powell ( trainer to all sorts of European eventing elite) trying to glean some useful training tips for Badminton. His view was that whilst everyone trained for every possible type of fence, angle at which it is situated, combination and related distance, no took into account 'people'. "What an earth are you talking about" I scoffed - "crowds" he nonchalantly replied. “You might be able to jump 4ft in the air at a 90 degree angle, but put a crowd of people around a cross pole and you watch it all fall apart" ha ha I thought, he may have a point here. I remember when I did my first 4* I had no idea how many 'people' would be at each fence. Anyway my point is that the biggest challenge that will face Abi and Todd is going to be 'people' and they are going to have to learn to stay focused on that fence regardless of what they see as they come around the corner. So this is where you can put a 10 year old to good use and at the end of my poles I put Eleanor - my daughter, doing her utmost to distract Todd and Abi!
Eleanor is put to good use!
It worked! Poles went everywhere! What we need now is 'rent a crowd'
After a good mornings session, we headed off back to the yard to erect 200m of electric fencing - to separate the sparring horses! At this point I press ganged David (my husband) into helping - luckily it was a beautiful January morning - what fun we had!
David looking as if he would rather be anywhere else than standing in the middle of a field with fencing tools!
The following day it was back to mother duties as Eleanor had her first pony club show of the year - we’ll tell you how that went in our next blog!
That’s all for now
Kate and Abi
