Bucks and other stuff

Wow, I have never been so busy in my life. Uni is obviously taking up a lot of my time, and juggling Jack and my social life is a massive feat but I'm doing it. I'm living in a Hostel with 30 other (mostly) first year uni students so study is based on pure will power. The temptation to leave my room to join in the interesting coversations in the corridor is big, but I am determined to get high marks in my course.

It poured on the weekend so I didn't ride for two days. This turned out to be a mistake because I also started Jack on twice daily feedings at the same time. When I got on him on Monday night he had turned into a monster. He bucked, he reared and he shyed A LOT. My well-behaved horse was showing his bad side. I'm the one to blame though. It was a fun ride anyway, we jumped for the first time since coming here and I didn't fall off. Jack did drop two poles which was very strange for him. I really must get him back into regular work for both our sakes.

Life is good, I'm really hoping to get Jack to a couple of one day events in the Hawkes Bay in April but we'll see whats happening with my finances. I'll be looking into Show Jumping around the area too so maybe I'll finally meet you Beckz?

Cross Country Schooling

S and I headed to one of the local pony clubs for Cross Country Schooling. The course was opened at 4 to anyone who wanted to pay the $10 fee. Thankfully S had a meeting at 5.30pm (she is off to Show Jump Champs on Sunday) so by the time we saddled up it had cooled down a LOT. It has been really hot here recently and Jack and I were glad to be out of the worst of the sun.

We started off small (as always) and Jack refused the very first jump. It was a hedge and I'm pretty sure I looked down. Looking down is my worst fault when it comes to jumping and I constantly have to remind myself to look up. This came into play later when Jack refused a relatively easy ramp about 6 times. I was getting frustrated with it and so I left it and came back later once we were on more of a roll. He refused again but I realised I had looked down so the next time I came in, I clamped my legs on, kept my eyes locked on a point up the hill and was soft with my hands and he jumped! I will definitely have to watch that in the future. Jack took awhile to settle into the jumping which is strange for him but I always find he is a bit more difficult after a day off.

My favourite moment of the session was the banks into and out of the sunken road. Up until my last Cross Country Lesson I had never done down hill banks. The technique that is supposed to be applied on a down hill bank is basically sit back, eyes up and let the horse take the reins through your hands. For some reason, when I try doing this I always feel really un-balanced and feel like I have no control as Jack would take off after the bank. When I rode up to the down hill bank, I leaned forward, looked down and put my leg on. Jack jumped and I felt perfectly in balance and control. I tried this a couple of more times and it worked great. I think that this will set me up for trouble in the future on larger banks and so I will keep trying the correct way but at Pre-Training it hopefully shouldn't matter too much. Doing the whole combination felt great and I was really proud of Jack, he jumped even though I was looking down.

We had one more refusal at a reasonable sized picket fence. I think I was looking down again so I cantered up to it and when he slowed down to a walk, I pushed him on and he jumped it from almost a standstill.

The rest of the night was so so. We did some Training size jumps which I haven't had the guts to do before without having my "safety blanket" instructor with me. I think I need one of those Sports Psychiatrists Beckz was talking about. I have confidence issues when it comes to jumping which I can mostly talk myself through but I find that having an instructor really boosts my confidence.

I have a cross country lesson with Sue tomorrow which should be good. I'm planning to jump the "Dog house" which I've been wanting to do since I saw it. Stay tuned.

Into the Wild

Waiting to head off

We went for our first ride in the forest today and it was awesome! S took her eventer Rocky and I of course was riding Jack. This was the first trip away from Pony Club since I got Jack and in truth I expected him to act a bit crazy. His previous owners told me that he was a great floater but since I hadn't floated him before I was a bit aprehensive. Well Jack proved me wrong by walking straight onto the float after Rocky! Yay! No bum ropes, whips or natural horsemanship required.

Woodhill Forest is situated a nice 20 minutes from our Pony Club. A Equestrian Park has been established there and has a lot of a great trails to ride on. Endurance Races are held in the forest and there is a campsite that is open to hire. Our pony club camps there every Easter which is a lot of fun. Right next to Woodhill Forest is Muriwai Beach and is accesible on horse back which means if you have enough time to get out there, you can go for awesome gallops along the beach.

The carpark was filling up fast when we arrived. Horses of all shapes and sizes with all sorts of riders were being tacked up and ridden out into the forest. When Jack came off the float I noticed that his tail bandage was no longer on his tail. He had given his tail a good rub on the bum bar and the tail was sticking up in all places. When I looked into the float, the tail bandage wasn't there either. Somehow he must have flicked it out the back of the float in transit. Can't say thats ever happend to me before.

Again I expected Jack to act crazy after coming off the float since it was his first time away from the club in quite a few months. Again Jack proved me wrong. He was as cool as cucumber and was no more fidgety then his normal self. We tacked up and headed off into the forest.

Tacked up and ready to go

And again I expected Jack to be a bit crazy, but again he suprised me. Are we seeing a pattern here? Man I love that horse. Both the horses were calm and we rode happily along at the buckle. The trails are marked with posts with either a green or orange horse on it. Green is going away from the carpark and Orange is coming back to the carpark. We didn't have enough time to make it out to the beach and back so we just meandered in the forest. Its quite hard to get lost in the forest but it can be done (I know because I've done it before). We stayed on the marked trails keeping mostly at a walk. The footing is really deep sand in most parts and hard on the horses legs. Most of the trails were only wide enough for one horse and Rocky liked being in the lead. But Jack was never far behind, he face planted into Rocky's butt a few times :). We found a wider trail that had good footing and was big enough for both of us and went for a good gallop along it. Jack came straight back to a trot when I asked him. Man I love this horse! There were also some great logs set up as "natural jumps" along the trails so we had fun jumping those.

S, Rocky and Jack (S has a very strange smile here haha)

Both the horses were very brave, they both had a couple of spooks at horse eating logs and bushes but were generally well behaved. Rocky actually spooked when he heard the noise of Jack's poop hitting the ground. It was halerious.

Since S's parents were waiting back at the carpark for us we headed back just after an hour. It seemed way longer then that though and we covered a lot of ground in that time. Both the boys were super sweaty so we sponged them down before booting them up and heading back to club. We found my tail bandage in the middle of the road on the way back haha.

S grabbed her pony and we gave the 3 boys a bath when we were back (this was after S and I raced each other to the bathrooms. We drank a lot of water on the ride). After the baths we let them graze on the lush green grass by the pens.

"Munch, Munch"

After a few photos the boys were fed and put back in their paddocks.

It is hard to get two horses to stand nicely when there is
lots of nice grass right under their noses.

I headed home to do housework and clean the outside and inside of my car. I don't know about the rest of you but my car gets fithly, dirty when I have my horse stuff in there. It really annoys me!

Mr "Don't Call Me Crazy" and me
(perhaps I'm a tad more crazy then him)

Anyway, it was amazing day and it really showed me how much more Jack trusts me. He keeps revealing little bits of how great he is going to be one day! I think I am in love :)

Swirling mass of confusion

I’m confused..

A couple of weeks ago I started feeling like I didn’t want to ride. It started becoming a chore and a hassle. I really couldn’t believe it myself since I’ve never felt that way before.

Then I went to the Easter show. Ghost and I entered in one class to start of with and if we did alright we were going to enter in one of the higher ones. Sarah-Anne warmed us up. Ghost refused on the first warm up jump and I fell off. Not a good start. But it didn’t really faze me since I’ve done that more then a few times with Red. We went into the show jumping and it fell apart. We had 2 refusals and I forgot the course and so crossed my tracks once. I came out really angry with myself since I knew Ghost was more then capable.

A few things were said unintentionally to me after the round that hit a raw nerve and made me question riding even further. I opted not to do the Easter show on Monday (which I now regret) and go back to Auckland a day early. I thought a lot about riding during my week off. I came back to Taumarunui wondering what to do. After a good talk with Val I decided to just ride casually over the winter. I had been feeling pressure (from no one in particular, it was just a general feeling) to be riding continually and doing really well in the competitions. And since I wasn’t do well I think it put me off riding competitively. But Val and I cleared that up and since the conversation I have been feeling much better about riding in general.

I’m still at a loss what to do though. I have always wanted to get into horses full time but over the last month and a bit my feelings have been bouncing back and forth in regard to that. Sometimes I am adamant I never want to get into horses full time and sometimes I still think it would be cool. Right now I’m thinking of going to university to study photography next year and have a break from horses for a couple of years. For the last four years my life has been devoted to Red and to horses. I’ve worked my butt of trying to pay for him and trying to do the best I could which I regret in no way what so ever. A break from the continual pressure of trying to afford to keep a horse would be wonderful. Especially since I’ll only have a part time job if I’m at university. Keeping a horse on a part time job is not fun. I would NOT be giving up horses forever, I’ve realised now that I do love horses. As soon as I’m out of university or in a better financial position I’ll be getting back on the band wagon of riding.

So that’s where I stand at the moment. Still a bit confused but getting there slowly. The good thing is I went for an amazing three hour bareback ride on Friday night. My friend Emma convinced me to go for a ride on our neighbor’s farm. I thought it was going to be a short ride which is why I went bareback but it wasn’t. We ended up doing the last half an hour in the dark and I can’t believe we didn’t get lost. I wasn’t even sore after it which was great! Then yesterday afternoon some of our neighbors and us went on a big goat muster to get the feral goats in. Murray is home for a week from his job just out of Palmy so I rode out with him and we spent an awesome three hours chasing after goats and talking about everything. Its so great to be relaxing with horses and in good company. I’m also starting on cleaning out and organizing the tack room tonight which is going to be a big job, but I’m excited. The room is a mess and I love organizing :)

Back to Work

Well its back into training again now that Reds better. Since I’ve been away at camp, last night was the first time I had been on in him in a couple of weeks. I didn’t want to do anything too hard so we started off doing some baby cross country jumps in the tractor paddock. I concentrated keeping him rounded and balanced over and between each jump. We progressed to some of the slightly bigger jumps as he was going really well, and we then did a tiny course of the jumps in that one paddock. He was fighting to go the whole time I was riding him through the course which I took as a good sign, you know… that he wanted to get back into work.

I then took him into the arena for a little bit of dressage. Well I tell you, he was great! His collected work on the left rein was stunning. He was balanced, elevated and soft. I decided that I couldn’t put it off any longer and made the decision to work on his right canter. The first transition was bad, I hadn’t kept him balanced as I cued for the canter and he cantered on his left leg. I bought him back, balanced him again and then asked for the canter. AND HE DID IT! The second time I asked he cantered on his right lead! I couldn’t believe it at first, I had to keep looking down to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. I kept him going around the arena a few times, praising him non stop and then bought him back to a loose walk. Deciding to finish on a good note, I cooled him down. Now please excuse me for this next part, but I need to brag. Pony Club camp is on at the moment and a lot of people were watching us as we worked. When I came out of the arena I stopped to talk with Elmir, my old instructors mum. She complimented us over and over which was great, since she knew what we were like when we first came to Pony Club. One of the instructors from another pony club complimented Red too, saying that he was a gorgeous thoroughbred with muscle in all the right places and that I must be training him right. They also said we were looking amazing in the arena, and to keep up the good work. I was on a high for sure.

So now I’m hoping beyond hope that I manage to get him going exactly the same way in the competition next weekend. I remember exactly how I warmed him up so I’m going to do the exact same thing in the comp. Here’s hoping.

Another Goal Gone!

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Red and I were due to compete in a particulary hard dressage test against my Pony Club ride. I only had 10mins to warm up and I wasn't expecting anything spectacular but as I trotted around the ring I said to myself 'We are going to be amazing, we are going to do the best dressage test ever' over and over again. Lo and behold we did great!

Red and I scored really well. We got a lot of 7 and 8s in the transitions which I was very pleased with. The only thing that let us down was the right canter which I'm not suprised at all about. But we're working on that.

But even more exciting was we got lots of great remarks about Reds bending! Comments like 'Supple and bending well into the corners" and "Great circle, bending nicely' showed up. I was so pleased. We didn't place but hey sometimes achieving a goal is better then getting a rosette.

Congratulations to Michelle!

I was just want to say a hefty well done to my friend Michelle and her horse Gizmo over at A Moment in Time. Michelle trialed for Pony Club Show Jump Champs and came 4th in the last trial which is awesome! Shes not in the Hamilton Team but shes eligible to be a draft rider for another team if they need a senior. This is a great accomplishment! Well done Michelle! I'm so proud :) You can read her version of events at her blog.

Here are a couple of her pics:

Also congratulations to my friend Simone and her horse Rocky who made the West Auckland team. She doesn't read this blog but I thought I might put it in anyway.

Moving on up

Well we did, Red and I passed our C certificate Exam. We are now the proud holders of the C level badge (well not really, I haven't recieved the actual badge yet). Every wednesday night I would drive an hour to Sues house in the whop whops. I studied the theory side of the exam with a couple of other girls there. We discussed, we talked, we ate some chocolate cake and we revised all the particulars of the C exam and finally last night we sat it.

Sue didn't give us much warning about when we were going to sit it. In fact she only gave us one day. She also neglected to tell me until lunch time yesterday that Red needed to be plaited. I had work till 5.30 and the exam started at 6.10. and I can't get up to PC till 6. Luckily my amazing friends came to the rescue. When I arrived at Pony Club last night Red was standing tied up in all his plaited glory. Stephanie, one of the older riders had even plaited his tail for me.

Soon we were in the arena, following the direction of the judge. All was going well, its a relatively easy exam, until the judge said "Take your feet out of the stirrups" and then "Cross the stirrups over please, we're going to do some sitting walk and trot". Now I can bareback as well as the next person, it took me awhile but now I feel completely secure with no saddle on Red. But sitting trot in the saddle is a completely different thing. I combed my brains for all the information I had ever heard on sitting trot in the saddle with no stirrups. I relaxed, put my heels down and low and behold TROTTED! And I didn't fall off.

Next it was the show jumping. You might remember that last time I show jumped it didn't go quite as planned. I tried not to think about it as we trotted around the jumps. "We are going to go clear" I chanted over and over to myself (in my head). "You may do some practice jumps" the judge declared. "Here we go" I thought to myself as we cantered towards the jump. SLAM! Red threw on his breaks. He did it twice more before I got him over. Teresa was first, her horse Copper refused at the big barrel jump but was fine after that. Then it was Red and I. The first part of the course was simple and we did it with no trouble, but then we reached the barrels. I rode Red in, legs on, eyes up but he refused. I turned him around and rode him towards its again, he refused. We tried again and again he refused. Now I was getting angry, I turned him around, determined to make it over. He cantered in and I felt him hesitate so I put my legs on hard. He came almost to a standstill and then took a leap. It was one of his huge jumps that clears the heights by miles. I came flying out of the saddle and landed with a thump on his neck, my jaw wacked hard against his head. I felt myself slipping so I monkey grabbed around his neck with both my hands and legs. I then managed to wiggle myself back into the saddle. And with my head pounding Red and I finished the course with no other mishaps.

Cross country was next and we went clear with no problems what so ever. After a bit of theory with the judge we were told we had all passed!

So congratulations my darling Red, thanks for helping me pass. I'll love you forever no matter how many times you refuse :)

It has began!

Yep so it was the first Pony Club Rally last night! And really it was quite an anti-climax. All we did was trot around and a tiny bit of canter and that was it. I did get some good bend out of Red though. We also didn't have our normal instructor because she only got back from Scotland yesterday morning.

We also played a game where we had to throw lollies to someone else on horseback and answers questions about different things to do with horse riding. So that was good. Lollies are always good.

After the rally had finished I was doing up Reds cover and he tried to kick the pony next to him and barely missed me. I felt the air woosh by my stomach. That could've been very painful. Hes not usually a kicking horse but obviously he doesn't like Harlequin too much.

Anyway I can't wait till next week. It should be really good! At least I hope it will.

A story for another day #5: Walkie Talkie + Dixie = Nothing Good

Dixie was a gorgeous horse, absolutely stunning in my opionion and I fell in love with him as soon as I set my eyes on him. He was a gorgeous dun with a dorsal stripe and black stockings and an incredible mane that really topped him off. It was black underneath but the top layer was an incredible silvery colour the likes I've never seen before.

I soon found out he had ringbone arthritis and Sarah-Annes family were seeing if he could be used for light trekking. If not he would go back to his owners. After my little escapade in A story for another day #3: The Devil Mare I was asked if I wanted to ride him. I jumped up and he was an absolute dream the whole time. After that he was one of my favourites.

So the next day we went for another ride. I was going to ride Dixie again, I caught him but when I went to swing up he wouldn't stand still and was acting a bit funny. Grace said she would try him. She took him to the water trough, and slowly slid her weight onto him. As soon as her butt was on his back he took off in a bucking frenzy. Huge, huge bucks for a horse with ringbone arthritis. After he had settled down she got off, gave me a leg up and we went for the ride. He was fine the whole time.

The next day camp started so the of us couldn't go out together for various reasons. Instead Grace and Christina took some horses out to exercise, and Sarah-Anne and I went about 30 mins after them. I was on Dixie bareback, and Sarah-Anne was on a horse I can't remember at the moment. We decided to do one of the basic tracks that takes you around part of their farm and then back to the home paddock. We had a walkie talkie on us as did Christina and Grace so we could keep in touch.

The first part of the ride went fine, and then we came to the bottom of a hill that we always cantered up. Suddenly the walkie talkie that was sitting in the front pocket of my hoodie came alive, it was Christina "Katie, this is Christina. Come in Katie." I pulled the walkie talkie out of my pocket, and held the reins in one hand. "Recieving Christina, go ahead." (As you can see we had fun using all the walkie talkie type phrases). "We're just up the top the hill in the trees" she said "We can see you." Suddenly Dixie skittered sideways, but I easily sat on. "Oh I can't see you" I replied "Where abouts are you talking about?" "Um we are about..." and thats when it happened, Dixie started bucking. Small bucks at first but they got bigger and bigger as Christina kept talking. I jammed the walkie talkie back into my pocket and tried to calm Dixie down while trying to stay on at the same time. But he got more upset the more Christina talked. I prayed and willed with all of my heart for Christian to just shut up but it wasn't happening.

So my options raced through my head, I could either pull the walkie talkie out and toss it onto the ground and hopefully Dixie would stop. But it was an expensive piece of equimpent and I didn't want to be responsible for it breaking on impact, or perhaps having Dixie smash it when he was doing his little bucking dance.

OR

Throw the walkie talkie to Sarah-Anne. But unfortunately my aim is bad at the best of times and trying to do it while on a bucking horse would just be silly. It probably wouldn't reach its target and end up getting smashed on the ground.

OR

Somehow pull the walkie talkie out, press the right buttons and tell Christina to be quiet all the while trying to stay on and calm my horse down.

OR

Just jump off. I really didn't want to do this as I hate horses getting the better of me in these sorts of situations . If I could ride the bucks and get through this it would be better in the end for both of us.

Still Christina talked, I could hear her trying to explain where they were standing. I knew she could see us as she said so before so I knew she could see what Dixie was doing. I hoped that she would put two and two together and stop talking but she didn't and as a result his bucks just got bigger and harder to sit.

It was (as they say) 'do or die', I knew that I would probably get bucked off in the next couple of seconds and I would probably land hard, maybe even breaking the walkie talkie while I was at it and so I just jumped off.

Dixie stopped as soon as I was off and just at the time the walkie talkie went silent. I was so angry! If I had stayed on that second longer I might have been able to get him to stop. I pulled the walkie talkie out of my pocket, walked up to Sarah-Anne and gave it to her. I was not going to have the happen to me again.

I had to walk a bit to find a slope so I could vault back on as Dixie was quite a big horse (don't dispute me on this Sarah-Anne haha). We went on with the ride and Dixie was fine after that except for one small buck when I wouldn't let him trot when he wanted to.

Christina and Grace were back at the home paddock when we arrived. "Oh hey we saw Dixie bucking" Christina said when we jumped off "What was wrong?" I couldn't help but laugh as I explained why Dixie had been bucking. "Oh I'm so sorry!" she said. I told her not to worry, these things happen.

A story for another day # 4: The Choice

One day Sarah-Annes dad asked us to help herd some sheep to another paddock. So we jumped on two of her horses bareback and set off. The sheep we're wayyy down the road so we rode all the way down to their paddock and rounded them up which was no easy feat, especially since I had to go along one track that had a lot of thorny bushes head and arm height. Finally we pushed them out onto the road and we took them down to their new paddock.

When we arrived at the gate we saw that one of the male ostriches had gotten out and was on the road in front of us. Now I don't know if Ive mentioned this before butI hate and am totally scared of ostriches. Espcially males. If I could choose one animal on the planet to die it would be the ostrich (horrible and mean I know, but thats how much I hate them). Its mostly an irrational fear since Ostriches have never really done anything to me (except for Aussie) but Sarah-Anne has told me many a tale about her parents being attacked by ostriches and how they almost died (ostriches can kill). Also ostriches have this revolting mating call which sends shivers down my spine.

So anyway this ostrich was on the road in front of us. Sarah-Anne and I decided the safest thing to do would be to move over to the side of the road and not provoke it in anyway. So we turned around and started moving off to the side of the road. I looked back and saw the ostrich running down the road straight for us. I didn't know what to do! I had no chance of galloping away and out running the ostrich because they run faster then horses. But there was really no where to go! It came closer and closer... and then just ran past us. So now the ostrich was behind us on the road we decided to move the sheep into their paddock, Lance , Sarah-Annes dad, was at the gate. He told us just to hold back a second because Zee Zee, one of the stallions on the farm, was by the gate and was trying to get through. Suddenly, and I don't know how it happened, Zee Zee was out on the road!

Now I really didn't know what to do. Here I was, standing in the middle of the road next to my best friend with a dangerous Ostrich on one side and a dangerous stallion on the other. To make it worse, we were both on geldings. The ostrich was further away then the stallion so we slowly started moving towards the ostrich, trying to give Zee Zee some space. I was looking around, hoping an escape route would present itself, but alas I could see nothing. We really only had two choices, move towards the Ostrich and risk the claws of death or move towards Zee Zee and risk his wrath, hooves and teeth. I really didn't know what to do, I mean it was like choosing my death! But then the choice didn't need to be made because Zee Zee turned around and cantered off down the road in the opposite direction.

PHEW!

Lance jumped in the car and went after Zee Zee. He managed to herd him back and into his paddock. The sheep went to the cprrect place and the ostrich was established back in his rightful paddock. And we walked alllllllllllll they way back.

The cold windy days

When my annoying alarm woke me up this morning I realised it was raining outside and I though to myself "Red will not be a happy boy today" and I was right. He was the grumpiest I have ever seen in him in my whole 3 years of owning him. First he gave me his evil eyes and angry ears when I walked up to him in the paddock. He then turned and walked away. But he soon stopped and I was able to get him. Then as were walking all the way down to the wash bay he went as slow as he could. Honestly I could not get him to move out. And he wanted to stop to eat every few metres.

When I finally got him down to the wash bay it all went bad. Aparently everything I did annoyed the heck out of him. If I was undoing his cover he would try to nip me, if I picked up a brush he would try to nip me, and sometimes if I was just walking past me he would go in the for the kill. After telling him off a few times he finally got the message that nipping me was not on, so he decided to take his anger out on the air instead. His teeth nashed, his tail flicked and his ears were laid against his head at anything I tried to do. He was not a happy boy.

Then when I went to mount him he would not stand still! This horse just did not want to be ridden. But once we rode around a bit he settled down and got on with work. It just took us awhile to get there.

Last night I got the call that Pheonix can come onto grazing early!!!!!! Wahoo! Its going to make life so much easier. He'll be up in the next couple of weekends. I'll probably find out the exact date tonight! I'm really excited. Reds going really well at the moment, and Pheonix will be a great new challange so I'm in for a exciting 3 months while hes here.

Well thats all for now!

A story for another day #3: The Devil Mare

Every summer I go to camp. This isn’t any camp; it’s a horse camp (surprise, surprise). Horse Camp is one of the highlights of my years. I absolutely love it! The people are amazing, and we always have tons of fun! In fact Camp is where I met Sarah-Anne; the camp is on her parent’s farm and all the horses we ride are owned by them. The camps are run by Scripture Union
and anyone can come. (The link takes you right to the Horse Camp page). Exciting things happen every year at camp and we always have the best of times.



This past summer I went to two camps Senior Girls aka Farmyard Fillies (they recently gave them these silly names) and Senior Co-Ed aka Hard Core. This story takes place at the first camp Farmyard Fillies ‘snigger’. At this camp I mainly hang with one group of friends (people come back year after year) Lizzy, Kimmy and Sarah-Anne. Lizzy, Kimmy and I came down a couple of days early just so we could hang with Sarah-Anne since we only get together once a year at this camp. We also wanted to get some extra riding in. So out we go for a first ride of the summer. It wasn’t just us four, Grace (the co-director of this camp) and her sister Christina were down helping break in horses at the farm so they came with us too. Now I can confidently say that we all love McLeods Daughters and on this ride we were joking about how we could totally be the McLeods Daughters characters. We decided to ride bareback just to make it authentic (even though the characters of McLeods Daughters ride with stock saddles).

I was on this little pony called Tosca aka The Devil Mare. Apparently Tosca had a problem with bolting which was why she was no longer with her previous owner (I’m not sure if I was told this before I got on), she also had a jump which was absolutely fantastic. Now off we go on this ride. We rode along one of the familiar trails when we came to a gate, while one of the others was opening the gate, Tosca decided to go AWOL and she went for a little gallop up a hill. We soon sorted this out and we rejoined the others. About 5 mins after this incident we reached a small ditch. We jumped it and kept on going (the ditch has significance a little bit later on). We rode about another 5 minutes when I decided it was time to take a photo of the group. My camera was hanging around my neck so I got the others to stop and turn around. I had one hand on the reins and with the other I picked up my camera and took the lens cap off. As soon as the lens cap tapped against the camera I felt Tosca tense. I took the picture but it was blurry, so I held the camera back up to take another. The lens tapped again… twice. Tosca tensed again, and then did a little dance on the spot. I managed to take one more picture and then WOOSH! We were off. She had to get rid of this tapping monster on her back. She galloped straight for a small but very vertical hill. I wasn’t worried, I just knew she would stop when she realized she couldn’t get to the top of the hill. So I just tried pulling her to stop with one hand and kept hold of my camera with the other, not really worrying at all. But oh boy I was wrong. As soon as she realized she couldn’t get to the top she spun and started heading back the way we came. She was at a full gallop down the trail, I felt so secure with her small, quick stride that I still wasn’t worried. I just kept hold of my camera so it wouldn’t set her off again.
Then I saw the ditch, now up until then I hadn’t done much bareback riding. And I defiantly hadn’t done any bareback jumping. Seeing the ditch I realized there could be the possibility of me falling off this quick little minx. And I had to make a hard decision… when I fell did I want to protect my head or my camera (I wasn’t wearing a helmet! And yes I agree, my pony club instructors would be all aghast). You think the obvious decision would be to save my head and sacrifice my camera but at the time I was quite afraid of any wrath of my mum if I broke the camera. But before I could make this decision the ditch was upon us! She took off with a mighty leap and somehow I managed to stay on her (WAHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Go me! I was so proud of myself). And then suddenly she did one of those evil pony spins and BAM I was on the ground. Thankfully I didn’t fall on my head OR my camera… I fell on my butt. It hurt but there was no permanent damage (lol). The others soon arrived and I got back on and continued on the ride.

No more happened that day, but I never like her after that. I was put on her on another ride later in the summer and I was so worried about her taking off it was making her nervous (yes I know, if I had been relaxed I would’ve been fine) but it was all good because I got to ride Shelby who is my second favorite horse in the world and I cannot wait for her foal that better arrive soon! And that is the story about Tosca… she now has been bought by one of the campers and thankfully I will never have to ride her again.

PS. I just want to apologize for the two long posts I wrote today… I couldn’t help it.



PICTURES:

Pic 1 is of Lizzy, Kimmy, Me and Sarah-Anne. Look at us! It looks like we are having fun doesn't it. We even have warrior soot on our face!

Pic 2 is one of the pictures from that ride. I'm in the back in yellow. Obviously this isn't one of the pictures I took on my little adventure. But that little biddy I am riding on is Tosca.

Pic 3 is Kimmy on Kimmy (actually the horses name is Lady Kim, but it is named after her) and Shelby. Thats right, the big hunk of gorgeous horse flesh is Shelby. Isn't she just awesome! I love her to bits! And Kimmy is just the cutest appy ever!

Some news...

So it was Pony Club sign up day on Saturday. I went along, paid my money and applied for grazing for Red and Phoenix. Things with Phoenix are just sitting on hold at the moment until I find out whether he can come onto PC grazing earlier then the rest of the summer grazers. Honestly I think the committee should let him considering they have let 4 other horses onto the PC land recently and I have a valid reason for Phoenix coming early. The committee meeting is this week so hopefully I’ll be able to give you some good news. If the committee says no Phoenix will go to graze at my friends house for a couple of weeks but its going to be a nuisance since I’ll have two horses at two different places with limited time!

We were also given a new PC key at sign up. We have had heaps of attempted break-ins and we think a few of the old keys are in the wrong hands. Its not like everyone has access to the club rooms. The key is just for the front gate and the toilets. In one of the attempted break-ins the people rammed the gate with their car and smashed it to pieces, they then tried smashing one of the clubrooms door down but didn’t succeed. There are some mighty big dents in the door though. The front gate had to be replaced. Also there has been a sneaky old man stealing our old arena turf! The bark has been piled up in a massive mountain to the side of the arena and we use it for heaps of the muddy spots around the grounds. Twice recently while my dad and I have been there in the early mornings a old man drives in with his white 4-wheel drive and trailer and starts shoveling the bark into his trailer. Once its full he drives away. Now my dad and I always thought he was ligit. I mean how many people would steal bark when someone was watching! But nope! That old man is a thief! I happened to mention it to my friend’s mum who is on the committee at PC and she was like “What?!” So I told her all about him, how he comes in after us and leaves before us. So she checked it out and he has no permission to do it! Luckily some alarm bells rang in both my dad and my own head and we wrote his number plate down… but I had to take it off this site in case he saw it and I got sued for defamation. So hopefully he’s been reported to the police!

In other news it was wet, windy and cold today which means one thing: Red did not want to be ridden. But sometimes we have to do what we don’t want. Luckily I’m so in tune with my horse that I know he’ll most likely spook on days like this because he’s a High Strung Horse . So I was ready. He spooked a few times but they were nothing to worry about. Except one time I was changing my stirrup length when there was this MASSIVE bang which gave ME the fright of my life. Red instantly felt my fear and he then spun but it was all good. He settled after that. I take all responsibility for that spook, the rest was his fault.

If you have been reading the national news in NZ, you’ll know that Equine Flu has broken out in Australia. All horse imports and exports have been banned in and out of New Zealand. The races have closed down, as have many other horse related sports and clubs. For those who don’t know New Zealand and Australia are the only two countries in the world with a large equine population that has not had the Equine Flu. That means all our horses have no immunity against it, which in turn means if it gets to New Zealand it will spread rapidly through the equine population. Other countries with large equine populations have annual vaccinations against the Equine Flu. I’m guessing that once this crisis is over it may start to become implemented here. I’m not going to tell you all about what the Equine Flu can do, but if you are interested you can read about it here . I’m praying it won’t make it to New Zealand. The horses that have been imported from Australia recently are being tested but it will be awhile before we find out if the virus is here or not. Let’s just hope it doesn’t arrive because it means many will have serious problems with our horses and also we won’t be able to compete! I am so looking forward to this season and I don’t want anything to stop Red and I having fun. And if any Aussies are reading this I’m sending all the healing warmth I can from here! I hope your horses get better soon!


Heres a pic of the happy, healthy Red. He better stay this way.


Until later!

A story for another day #2: Lost at Woodhill

Well Red and I are just in limbo at the moment. Pony Club season starts next month so we're just hanging about hoping it will come soon. As a result nothing too exciting is happening with us, we're just doing what we always do basically. So to keep all my faithful readers entertained heres a account of one of my past adventures.



Every year our pony club has an awesome 4 day camp at Woodhill Forest, about 30 mins from Auckland. We pack up our horses, tents and a couple of dogs and go camping on the grounds of Woodhill Endurance Club. Its truly an amazing time. When I first took Red last year he wen't nuts at being out of the pony club. I had a hard time controlling him the first day, all he wanted to do was GO GO GO! Needless to say I wanted him to just lumber along with the rest of the horses. The next day my friend Kate helped me do some work with him in the round pen and after that he was an angel!



So this year off we went off to another time of fun. Most of my friends have their C+ so we were allowed to go off without instructors or adults provided we had a map. We went on a lot of rides but one will always stick in my mind. It was the day before the last day of camp, the last day we could ride. I was going on a ride with Kelly, Jo, Chelsea and Emily. Kelly had to be back by 11 because her mum was taking her horse home a little bit early. So off we set. We didn't pay much attention to the trail markings along the way and soon we became helplessly lost. We had no idea where we were, or where to go next. We had no cellphone coverage and even if we did we couldn't tell anyone where we were. So we just kept riding. Eventually we found a large deer fence, the boarder of the forest. When we saw that we realised we were a long, long way from camp. And to make matters worse the horses were going crazy, it seemed everyone of them had a bad race brain. They were galloping anytime we gave them a little head, we had almost no control.



Jo was having trouble with her girth too, so we got the horses to slow down a little so she could fix it. One foot was out of the stirrup and she was bending down to fix the girth when the horses took off again. I was last in line, and Jo was directly in front of me. As soon as her horse went, the saddle started slipping so she sat up and put her leg out to the side trying to keep her balance. I could see she was almost falling so I tried calling to the others to slow down but alas it didn't work. Jo managed to keep her balance a bit longer when suddenly I saw the saddle slip to the side and suddenly Jo and Inky (her horse) dissapared down a bank. "Holy Crap! Guys come back!" I yelled as I slowed Red down a bit and jumped off him mid stride. I turned around just in time to grab Inky who came galloping towards me. I ran down towards the place I had seen Jo fall, I was really worried Inky had fallen on her. She was climbing the bank when I got there, laughing loudly. Apparently when they had gone off the bank Inky had missed her completely but she had fallen into a massive patch of cutty grass and had cuts all up her arms and on her face. Other then that she was fine. Jo was putting her saddle right, and had almost got on when the others finally arrived back. She told her story and off we went again trying to find a way home.



By now it was 12.00 and we were a bit worried about the wrath of Kellys mum. We finally ended up in a clearing, and we stood contemplating what to do next when suddnely an endurance rider appeard out of nowhere! We fell on her with shouts of glee and thankfulness, and after hearing our horrowing tale she told us we were about 2km away from the camp and if we took the path she showed us we'd be there in no time! We quickly set off and soon we were back in camp. Surprisngly Kellys mum was nowhere to be seen, but Kellys truck was still there. Someone told us she was still on a ride! So at least we weren't in trouble. Oh what an adventure that was.



So now I am impatiently awaiting next years camp! They are always great fun and I promise to keep you informed during it next time! But for now I'll just be waiting for the PC season to start!



This is Brooke, myself and Simone at camp. Observe my wild fringe, I didn't have access to a hair straightner at camp. Also observe my weird expression, I think that is the result of too much sun and little sleep. I would also like to add that I am actually not THAT short compared to Simone. She is tip toeing in that picture!

A story for another day # 1: Those Ostriches

For those of you that have/had horses you'll know that they are always handy when a good story is needing to be told. Horses make good stories happen, they bring to life to an otherwise dull situation and inject a bit of humour when things aren't really that funny. And so I shall tell you one of my more memorable horse stories.



It all started when I was at my best friend Sarah-Annes house. We set out on a trek with Murray (SA's brother), Cameron (a boarder), Heather(SA's sister) and possibly Richard (a friend) but I can't rightly remember. I had been given a little pony called Cocoa to ride and no one seemed to think that the fact she was scared crapless of ostriches was a thing to tell me. This wouldn't really matter in many other situations as ostriches are not wild animals that roam New Zealand freely. But you see Sarah-Anne and her family breed ostriches. Most of the ostriches were kept in ostrich pens at the front of the farm, except for one cutie called Ozzie (Aussie?). Ozzie had free reign of some of the paddocks and she happened to be in one of the paddocks that we were riding through. As soon as Cocoa saw Ozzie she went crazy, I can't remember all that happened apart from the fact the Cococa was backing up on the edge of a very steep bank. I managed to get her to start moving forward which she took as a cue to get away as fast as she could from the scarey demon bird. She bolted up a hill, while the others tried to scare Ozzie away from the gate we were trying to get through. I managed to turn her around, which was no easy feat, and get her through the gate and away from the scarey ostrich.



We kept on with the trek and nothing happend until we had almost finished. We were coming through a paddock called the Burn which happened to have all the yearlings and other young horses in it. As we rode along singing (oh yes we were singing) the young horses were galloping mindlessly around us. We were having a great time singing a round robin when suddenly Cocoa jumped up onto a bank that the young horses were milling about on. I kept singing, utterly proud of myself for sitting that very unexpected jump, when all of a sudden the young horses took off. Cocoa obviously was feeling young at heart because she bolted too. I was galloping along in the middle of this wild (ha!) herd of horses trying to gain control of my free spirited mare when I realised that my singlet top had slipped down my arms and was exposing my bright aqua blue bra. Needless to say I was quite embarressed. I could hear the laughter of my friends behind me and I could imagine what they were saying. I managed to pull my top up with one hand and pull her to a stop with the other. We shamefacedly walked back to the others, well I did, I dont know how Cocoa was feeling. They were all cracking up making jokes about the incident as we made our way back home. I remember Murray saying 'wouldn't it have been so funny if you had fallen off with your top like that'. The others found that hilarious, but I didn't.

We made it back home and I unsaddled Cocoa and went to put her away, unfortunately I didn't realise that Ozzie had been put in the pens close to Cocoa and upon seeing Ozzie walking close by Cocoa pulled back hard. It felt like she ripped my arm out of my socket. I put Cocoa away and then declared that I hated horses and never was going to ride again.

As you can see I did ride again, although I don't think I've ridden Cocoa since that day. But that story has gone down in history and I don't think I'll ever hear the end of it.