Friday 23 August 2013

Reviewing Posy's Progress

She has been shaking Her head over Posy's slow progress.  Although Posy seems to have developed muscles in all the right places and continually improves, albeit slowly, she doesn't show the desired head carriage very often.   She has been agonising over whether She has correctly interpreted Udo Burger's training instructions.  So, She decided to try and compare Posy with other 5 year old horses.  Rather than look at other amateurs who are probably as bad as She is, She started by looking to see what the top 5 year olds were doing.  Where better to start than looking at this year's Pavo Cup winner?

The horse's natural paces seem to have been 'enhanced' by the rider urging the horse forward whilst simultaneously leaning back and pulling its head in.  The result wouldn't look out of place in a Big Lick class.  Whilst this is doubtless temporary showing off, She did wonder what effect this would have in the longer term, so had a look at last year's winner, now in the 6 year old class.

Hmmm. She thinks Udo Burger would have said "told you so!".

Away from the mayhem of the show ring she found a video of another 5 year old in training.

This was in Denmark where it seems the Scales of Training don't apply. 

The end result of this review was that She thinks that Posy should look livelier, but at least Posy shows good rhythm and looseness, even if the contact part isn't so established.  Posy has promised to try and work through more - fearful that she, too, might have her jaws clamped shut with a tight noseband and her head hauled in to make her forelegs kick higher.

Me, I keep my head down and hope that She doesn't start comparing me with this year's Derby winner...



Monday 19 August 2013

Posy has another outing

Yesterday, it was back into the motorised cabin for another dressage show to give Posy More Experience.  I wasn't entered because I disgraced myself last time, so I busied myself munching through our haylage supplies while Posy was in the indoor school.  I could hear her in there, wailing.  So, every now and again, I stopped eating long enough to call reassuringly.

There was a video and She has edited out all the neighing which leaves only a couple of minutes' worth of the two tests. 
 


Posy found the whole experience emotionally draining and was relieved to be going home.  Meanwhile, She is trying to convince herself that there has been a marginal improvement in Posy's deportment since the last outing and has planned another.  Poor Posy, I don't think her nerves can stand it.

Monday 12 August 2013

I come to the rescue once more

For the fifth time, Posy was indisposed when she was supposed to be entering a competition.  Of course, I had to step in at the last minute to save the day.  It was a local event at Lidwell so I had to walk.  When I got there, I was amazed to see a horse wearing bizarre eye goggles like this.
It turned out that these are equine sun glasses and the horse had an eye condition which made her sensitive to UV light.  I watched her test and she made it round without bumping into the fence, so they must work.  When it was my turn, I did my best in spite of the warm weather. 
I was kept busy in the interval between classes - greeting my many fans, trimming the grass verges and baby-sitting for 'Bill' while his friend was competing.  I don't know what his friend said when he came back to find his haynet empty because I was busy supervising the jumping by then.
At the end I won the prelim class with 70.5% and got 66% in the Novice, although I was the only one that did it.  I got a 9 for my stretchy trot.  Clever me!

Wednesday 7 August 2013

Hanuman ventures out

Our chum Freddie arrived this morning, but not for me, he had to escort Hanuman on his Very First Outing beyond The Gate and into the Wide World.  Hanuman wasn't sure at first but made it down the road to Freddie's house where he stopped, ate a carrot and had his photo taken.
 
Hanuman began to relax but then was taken back up the road again.  He thought it was all terrific fun and was very brave on the way home.  Now he keeps trying to sneak out of the gate and go adventuring.