Saturday at the Pony Club

Having a horse and being part of a horsey community is amazing. The friends you make, the horses you ride and the experiences you have are really something special.

Yesterday we had a working bee at pony club and the jobs we did really could have come straight out of 'The Saddle Club'. When I arrived it was well under way, it took me awhile to get myself together yesterday thanks to a really good book that I didn't want to put down.

Recentley our pony club has bought a lot of new equipment. We've bought a bunch of new pipe arenas for ODE's, a new cross country course is going to be installed soon and we bought new show jumping jumps! The SJ jumps needed to be painted so thats what we did yesterday. The poles had been layed out on the hitching rails and most of them had been painted by the time my friend Emily and I had arrived (she was late too). But we picked up a paint brush and helped finished them off. I put a little bit of paint on Emily's cheek and needless to say she needed revenge. She first got me on the hand, then on my ear and a little bit of hair and then on my eye!!! I had a stripe down my face that made me look like a Native American in war paint.

We were then given the job to paint the trotting poles with black oil paint. Which was rather unpleasent since oil paint is hard to get off. I got some on my jeans :( and all over my arms which no amount of scrubbing will take off. Em was wearing shorts so she got spots all over her legs. While that was drying we went up to Westgate (a shopping centre) to get some lunch. We didn't get all the paint off and we got some weird looks from people in Subway.

When we got back to Pony Club we finished the black poles and went for a ride. I got to try out Reds new shoe! The farrier opted to put a heavier shoe on his club foot as recently hes been throwing that shoe a bit. He also it said it would help Red to canter on his right lead as thats one of our big problems. So first I did some jumps on him and he would canter on his right lead while we were doing that and I was really pleased, I thought that problem was over. But alas when I cantered him in the open he was back onto his left lead! But at least its an improvement! He wouldn't even canter on the right lead when we were jumping before that shoe was put on.

Emily jumped on him while I went on her baby Harlequin. Shes a great rider, especially compared to me and she gave me some good tips on getting him going well. When I got back on him I tried them out and he was a gem! Thanks Emily!

I also wormed Red by myself yesterday which I was very proud of! Red is a terrible wormer. He hates the tube coming anywhere near his mouth! But I worked with him calmly and managed to do it! He does stick his head straight up as soon as he tastes the wormer which makes it difficult to administer the full dose in one go, so I had to do it three times till it was all in.

Anyway today I'm going for a ride and giving him a bath (another thing he hates) but he's got some bad dandruff that needs dealing with.