2007 September | Chris's Blog

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Archive for September, 2007

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Schools E3

Thursday, September 27th, 2007

Earlier this year we were approached by two local comprehensive schools to teach lessons as part of E3 out of school activities. We agreed to teach a maximum of 16 (minimum of 10) children in two groups, 8 riding and 8 doing stable management and then swapping over, riding for approx 45 mins on tuesdays and wednesday. Last tuesday the first group arrived (17 of them as one extra had turned up) from Tonyrefail Comp. Having no knowledge of the kids that would turn up we had already tacked up 9 horses of varying sizes. Firstly I asked all the kids that could ride to stand in a group on the left and all those that couldn’t on the right. I had 12 that said they could ride and 5 that couldn’t. Needing to have to equal numbers in each group I then asked the kids who said they could ride if they had ridden more than once, three had only ridden once so they went to the other side. The outcome was only 2 of the 17 could rise to the trot. Sharon taught the stable management, Leigh taught the riding with Carla, Jodie, Tasha, Sophie and Jess all helping and it did take a lot of help to get them on and sorted. The following day Y Pant brought 11 children we split these into a riding and non riding group but two of the riding group had to be taught by Sophie as they were non riders Leigh taught the others and Marina did the stable management. Today we had Tonyrefail again this time 20 kids turned up. Trying to get 10 kids mounted adjusting stirrups and teach them in less than 40mins is quite a challenge. Today we had 11 again from Y Pant. We had them all ride together in two groups then Marina had them altogether for stable management. They have all been quite enthusiastic and good fun to teach. This is a ten week course and we hope the funding will continue into the new year. Some of these children would not have the chance to ride and it will be nice to be able to make some progress with them.

Posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 12:23 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Show Jumping 23/09

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

Sunday so us up at Sunnybank again this time with Thor, Blue and Jynx. Blue and Thor did well winning a first and second place in the second Class. This was Jynx’s first outing with us. We had quite a bit of difficulty getting him on the box which made us late and we arrived just in time to walk the course for the first class. Sometimes I do consider taking up an indoor sport when we spend a couple of hours or more sitting on horses outside in the pouring rain waiting to compete. Jynx was well behaved until he went in the ring and then proceeded to nap and refuse to go forward, Leigh rode him well and managed to get to the last but one fence before getting eliminated. In the second class he was much improved and went forward, jumped all the fences but brought a couple down, and managed a fifth place. He also loaded on the box much easier coming home.

Posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 7:48 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Sad to see them go

Friday, September 21st, 2007

What a week, Freya has gone back to Essex, Polly has gone, Claire and William have gone to Aberystwyth, Kai is leaving for Cambridge, Victoria and Kate are off to uni and we are losing Laura on Fridays, Freya should be back soon but due to an accident last week she ended up in hospital for a few days and has gone home to recover, your probably thinking she fell off a horse but no. She had a couple of glasses of wine last sunday night and fell over a wheelbarrow whilst running down the path. It was sad to see William and Claire go today but I’m sure Claire is looking forward to Uni and it will be good for her to take William with her. Kai’s last day is tomorrow, Kai started off learning to ride here and has progressed to taking some BHS exams and has been teaching on a saturday for some time now. Kai is off to Cambridge University to study Maths but he will be back to ride and visit and maybe teach from time to time. Laura is now lecturing at Coleg Gwent full time and due to the M4 and the traffic on a Friday afternoon is finding it too difficult to get here, although Laura will be staying on a Monday evening to continue with the Horse Owners Course. Will miss Laura and her dress sense.

Posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 9:29 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Show Jumping

Tuesday, September 18th, 2007

Sunday we decided to take some horses to Sunnybank show Jumping. Freya has never jumped away from here before so it was a new experience for her. She took Phoebe who also hasn’t jumped away from home for a long time. I took Blue this was her 2nd show and Amelia took Destiny who hasn’t jumped since she had a sore back a few weeks ago so we decided to do a small class with her to see how she was. I looked at the schedule which said it was a championship show but open to everyone, trouble was they had every filler possible and more flowers than the Chelsea flower show. (Looked Beautiful though). Phoebe was horrified Freya managed to get to the fourth fence in the first class and the 7th in the 2nd class, Freya rode her well though and I’m sure they will do better with a bit more experience. Blue was also horrified, the first round was horrendous we didn’t actually have any refusals but jumped quite a few from a standstill with many a dire jump posistion and three fences down. The 2nd class was much better, didn’t have much brakes but she jumped them all with no hesitation this time, had one down and picked up a fifth. Phoebe and Blue were very well behaved and Sarah and Jodie were very helpful riding them outside for us. Amelia jumped one round onDestiny and picked up a 3rd but she did seem uncomfortable in her back afterwards so we left it at that, Physio is coming out Thurs so she can have a look at her then.

Posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 9:41 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Highmeade Storyteller

Saturday, September 15th, 2007

Zoe Morgan is a small 9yr old who rides once a week at this riding school on small, quiet ponies. Zoe has the makings of a good rider because she is relaxed, listens, thinks and shows good feel, she is currently riding at level 3. Eric (Highmeade Storyteller) is a very sharp, slight 12.2hh who thinks and behaves like a minature thoroughbred. Very few riding school kids have been able to develop the ability to ride him until they are too big for him. Zoe has commented several times that she would love to ride him. So where do you reach the point where you feel they would be safe enough to have a go knowing that if you get it wrong its going to be a potential disaster. Today was the day. I put Zoe on a lunge to start and we did quite a few walk trot transistions then we tried canter, Zoe did quite a few laps in canter before she worked out how to slow him down or stop him but once she got it she was fine. She didnt panic or tip forward and shorten the reins as a lot would but learnt to keep her shoulders back stay relaxed and take a firm pull. We did a few more canters on both reins then took her off the lunge line, Zoe rode him well riding school movements in trot and canter around the school. I don’t think I would put her in a group lesson on him yet because she still is a little loose in the saddle, she wouldn’t have a problem stopping him but there are times when he gets very worked up and I think he might dislodged her, but I don’t think it will take her long to get the measure of him.

Posted on Saturday, September 15th, 2007 at 4:13 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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