Sam- My mothers horse

Dai pie dressage tvrc help for heros show

Ruby before dressage

Hey guys! Hope the weathers been kind to you the last month! We’ve had a dry week at the end, with even a bit of sun coming through, although it’s been bitterly cold! I’ve had a good month with the horses and even managed a competition in the dry! Hopefully the weather will carry on the way its going and spring will be here before we know it!

So this month I’ve been riding my mothers horse Dai ready for the Towy Valley Combined Show, for the Charity Help For Hero’s. He’s 14.2hh cob that had done nothing before we had him, he hasn’t done much so he is very green. But he managed a 62% in the dressage phase, and a clear in the showjumping which got us to 2^nd place! So very very pleased with him!

TVRC’s combined training help for hero’s show

Ruby also went to the Combined show who also done a very nice dressage test getting 64%, and that with an almost clear round in showjumping with just a slight rider horse communication error (ruby decided there was an invisible watertray underneath the jump, so we took off way too early haha) she still managed a 5^th place. So pleased with how her flatwork is coming on and her dressage scores just keep getting better everytime we go out!

I also used my Honeychop prize pallet for a show, which I gave to TVRC’s combined training help for hero’s show. The bags got very good feedback and the horses loved it! Heres a few pictures of the social media posts about the day.

Ollie on water treadmill

Ollie hasn’t been sound the past couple of weeks so he hasn’t been in full work. Although he had a spa day with Bethan Lloyd and found the water treadmill and heat lamp very relaxing. He was out in his atlas and pelvis probably from doing something in the field, just goes to show if you know your horse well enough you can tell when they aren’t feeling 100% themselves. So with this Ollie didn’t get to jump in the afternoon showjumping classes at the TVRC Charity show, but he’s back to normal now so hopefully be out and about next month!

Ollie hand walking

Chester is doing pretty well at the moment, however testing he can be at the start, I am beginning to see a lot of improvement at the end of our schooling sessions and he seems to be enjoying being back in work. Super chuffed with him at the moment! However I am majorly looking forward to summer to come so the horses can start their turnout in the summer field and overnight turnout comes back!

I’m still going to weekly training with Jonathan Petts at Pibwrlyd College to improve my horses with a different exercise each week. I’m also on course with my portfolio for my PTT and I’m hopefully going to take the exam in the next couple of months.

The exercise we had of Tim for this months, was V poles on an upright fence. This exercise encourages the horse to pick up in front and therefore, neaten the jump and the horse should produce a cleaner jump with the horse making a better shape over the fence. This exercise was very good for Ollie, because he does tend to rush the jumps, so this helped back him off and slow him down and gave him time to think over the fence. Ollie really enjoyed this exercise and I could really feel a difference over the fence.

doing Tim’e exercise

When I first put Ollie over it, I left the A frame down to the side so that Ollie had a chance to get his footing and go through it without any distractions. I found this helped when I put them up because he looked at the fence more as it had changed from the last time he jumped it. He was a bit tentative and tight jumping it the first few times, but once he relaxed I could really feel him tucking up and using his shoulders over the fence.

I found that getting a slightly closer shot into the fence made a lot of difference, I could really feel him using himself over the fence, and as he tends to jump with his head slightly higher, using his neck more meant he loosened his hind quarters which made him less tight. I also found it easier to see a stride to the fence as the fence backed him off I had more time to see a better stride to the fence. Overall I really like this fence and I will continue to use it during my training as I really felt this really helped him and me and gave us lots of confidence.