Roadside preparation

We had a bit of a messy start to our ride on Saturday.  First of all we walked across the bottom fields to catch Dee, having seen that Red was already in, only to discover that the horses had been moved to the top fields.  Then we were told that the girls were getting Dee in for us, but we couldn't see her anywhere.  At last we discovered that the girls had kindly tried to bring Dee in for us, but she had refused to cooperate and they'd had to give it up.

Dee has quite strong opinions about who should and should not be asking anything of her and can refuse to be led in.  She occasionally does this even with 'ö-Dzin and I—if she is on new grass for example—but we have not had this happen for a long time.  As two attempts had already been made to bring her down to the yard however, we decided not to risk her running away from us, but to take our tack up and get her ready up at the top field.  So we tacked up Red and 'ö-Dzin rode him up to the top fields while I drove up there.

I don't really like dealing with the horses by the roadside.  It always feels a little bit risky – horses can be quite unpredictable.  Fortunately there is a bit of verge by the gate so they are quite well off the road itself, and there is very little traffic.

Dee came to call immediately – in fact she cantered down the field to me and was happy to have her head collar put on.  'ö-Dzin and Red arrived at about the same time.  We set up haynets for them and got Dee tacked up.  They both behaved well and we were soon ready to go.

No riding

Twice this week I have transported Dee's tack up to Briwnant but not succeeded in riding.  On Wednesday I went out to the field to bring her in.  Usually she just follows me up to the yard, but on Wednesday she was not interested.  I said hello, gave her a treat and patted her neck, but when I turned away to walk back she did not follow me as expected.  Now I know from previous experience with Dee that if she really does not want to come in and I try to lead her in using an ordinary head collar and lead rope it ends in trouble.  It may have been that she would have walked up quietly with me – but I decided not to risk it.  I was not feeling bright enough for an hour following Dee round the field to get the head collar off her after she'd dragged me around for a while.  Although she would not follow me she stood looking after me for a long time – in fact I think I could see her still looking for me as I drove away.

This morning I went up again but she was too wet to put a saddle on.  It has been raining for a couple of days.  Ahh well – perhaps next week will be drier and Dee will feel more cooperative.

I had a nice message from Moira in response to my post about the fun ride.  Moira owned Dee when she was a sprightly five year old.  She said:

"I laughed out loud to read about Dee jumping that stream.  I have a very similar tale to tell from years ago.  We were out on a hack with a friend of mine and her horse, Chester, and were trying to find a stream crossing.  We knew the way vaguely, just hadn’t done that particular ride for quite a while.  My friend and Chester found what they thought was the crossing (it wasn’t the right place as it turned out) and Chester scrambled down the bank, across the stream and back up the bank on the other side.  As this was happening, I could feel Dee gathering herself up for the most almighty jump.  And, like you, I had absolutely no choice but to go with her.  She flew right across and landed just to the left of a big tree, allowing just enough room for my leg.  I always believed that she would never take a jump without being certain of her doing it safely and that if I stayed with her, I’d be okay.  It sounds as if that’s still very much the case."

She is correct.  I trust Dee completely when it comes to jumping.  She is totally reliable and sensible.  I love that mare!

Magical moments

I have had a few wonderful visits with Dee over the last week.  One day I was going out to the field to get Dee and Nicky asked me to bring Red in as well to see the farrier.  I knew Red would follow us in, so I only took Dee's headcollar.  I still do not feel too confident about leading both my horses at the same time – they are so much bigger than me and I am not always confident of my footing with my dodgy knees!

I arrived at the second field and called them both.  Red defers to Dee, so she came to me first.  Usually I would put on her headcollar and then struggle to hold her and deal with the gate while I ushered Red through.  Because I inherited the notion of Dee being a difficult horse to manage when I bought her, I have always tended to feel I must make sure I have her fully under control.  I think this can make me tense and her naughty.  So this time I opened the gate and just let Dee wander through while I waited for Red.  The worst that could happen was that she was in the wrong field and wouldn't be caught.  When Red arrived I guided him through the gate and shut it.  My intention had been to then go and put on Dee's headcollar and lead her up to the yard, but she had already set out.  And so I had a lovely, relaxed walk up the field with Dee slightly ahead of me, occasionally stopping to look back and check we were still there, and Red walking right by my side – both happily going up to the yard of their own accord.  Magic!

Each time since then I have been letting Dee walk up to the yard on her own.  Today she was in what I call 'the wet field'.  It can be quite awkward getting them in from this field as there is a stream running through it which has formed a couple of deep trenches in the meadow.  If your horse comes to you by the car park, the only way to bring them in from there is to go all the way to the bottom of the field, across the stream and then back up – a steep and muddy walk.  Dee was at the bottom of the field.  She came to call, but stopped about 20 metres away, on the wrong side of one of the stream trenches.  I knew she could get across it and didn't fancy going down there to struggle in the mud.  She kept looking as I called, but didn't move and eventually turned her butt to me.  'Two can play that game,' I thought, and turned away from her and started to slowly walk back to the yard, still calling her.  Suddenly she remembered how to cross the trench, did so, and trotted up the slope to me.  Sensible mare – not to miss out on a feed for being stubborn.

I know she will not come to call so easily when the spring grass begins to grow – but I am enjoying it at the moment.  It is still very cold, so no riding yet.  I'm having fun looking for a saddle.  There are a few I like on ebay, but cannot decide whether to go for those or pay the extra £100 - £150 to get a brand new one. 

The fields at Briwnant are starting to look rather well cropped, but both horses are looking a good weight – as good as they did last winter when they lived at Wyndham.  The livery care at Wyndham was excellent, and there the horses had hard feed twice a day.  I'm pleased that they are doing just as well at Briwnant on grass livery with hard feed less often.

So sweet

Following on from my intention to work with Dee a little more often, we visited Briwnant this afternoon and headed across the fields to catch her.  We called her and she met us part of the way – closely followed by Red.  Dee and Red are no longer always together in the field these days.  Dee has established her own circle of friends in the herd, but nevertheless I think Red is usually aware of where Dee is.

I only had Dee's halter with me.  She was happy to be caught – I think she trusts me again now and is confident that we are settled at Briwnant.  We ambled back to the yard, taking our time, with Red following on behind.  I then brought Dee in and fetched Red's headcollar for 'ö-Dzin to bring Red in.

After grooming them both we did a little groundwork in the arena with both of them—as Red did not want to be left out—just leading them at the walk.  We performed serpentines, circling around cones, circles on the spot, halting and standing, and backing.  The idea is to get her bending and stretching and using her body more than she will just grazing in the field.  Red has not practised so much groundwork with me as Dee and he sometimes seemed a little confused by what we were doing, but Dee remembered it all very well.  I watched her closely while circling on the spot and crossing one hind leg in front of the other as she stepped round, and it did not seem to be causing her any problem.

I hope to have a chance to work with Dee a couple more times this week so that hopefully she will be ready to take part in Briwnant's fun ride next Saturday.  I'm really looking forward to this.  However I don't want to push her too much.  She is certainly no longer lame, but I cannot decide whether her hind leg is still rather stiff or whether I am imagining it.  I shall ride her a little later in the week and see how we get on.  There will be a few small jumps on the fun ride which Dee will love to jump – if she is fit enough.

When we turned them both back out to the field, Dee hung around at the gate a long time, not seeming to want to leave us.  Red stayed there as well.  He would not head back to the rest of the herd until Dee decided to.  I get the strong feeling that Red has a great loyalty towards Dee and feels protective of her, even though he knows she can be grouchy and give him a hard time.  Dee I feel takes Red's loyalty for granted, and yet relies on him and is more content with him there.  He gives her confidence.  They were so sweet today.

Bank holiday ride

It has been a bank holiday weekend here in Britain and we took a little trip up to Yorkshire to go down into a cave. The descent into Gaping Gill in a bosun's chair was an extraordinary experience and I am glad to have had the opportunity.

We came home on Sunday so that we would be able to ride on the bank holiday Monday. Dee seemed almost keen to be caught and came straight up to me and put her head out for the head collar. We have been looking forward to this ride because it is the first time we have been out to the Wenallt horse trail together since Dee came home. C. from Briwnant joined us on Thomas as well, so the three horse friends were together. Surprisingly Dee decided she was going to lead the expedition. Those who have been reading Ceffylau for a while will know that Dee naps and will not usually take the lead. Yesterday however she led all the way down Briwnant's track, down the road, and halfway along the first part of the Wenallt trail before the first hill. Then she just stopped – and that was it; she would go no farther. Red took over as lead horse and Dee happily carried on behind him. I was very pleased with her for leading this far, and I think it is an indication of how happy and relaxed she is at Briwnant.

We had a pleasant ride through Coed y Wenallt and then C. showed us how to get into Briwnant land at the top of the hill to avoid the long walk down Wenallt Road. This road is steep and narrow and not all car drivers are sensible or considerate when they meet horses. In places there is insufficient room for a car and a horse, so it is good to be able to get off the road. I often ride all the way back through the wood in order to avoid the road. The only disadvantage of entering Briwnant land at the top of the hill is that there are two gates to deal with. They are not suitable to open while mounted so this meant that one of us had to dismount and remount twice. It seemed logical for me to do this – Dee is the smallest of the three horses and she stands still better than Red. I haven't mounted a horse without a mounting block for a long time so this was quite a challenge for me. I struggled a little to get a few rungs up on each gate and then get a foot in the stirrup – but I succeeded and feel proud of myself for it.

There is a magnificent view from the top field across the Severn Estuary to England. The grass up there is long and lush and Dee sneaked a few mouthfuls while I was sorting out the gates. Rabbits scurried into the bracken as we approached the steep path down onto the track to the stables. It had been a delightful ride. It is so good to be able to ride together again.

After washing the horses down where they were sweaty and giving them a 'thank you feed', I led Dee first to the field. She was most reluctant to go back in the field ... until Red arrived ... and then she went straight through the gate. They do like to be together. They are fully integrated into the herd and often in the midst of things, but they still stay near each other. I feel that at last I have found a place where Dee and Red are happy, they are able to live at pasture, and where we can settle and keep the horses long term. Hurray!!

Life is good

My heart has been feeling very full with regard to the horses this week. They are both now out with the main herd. It is magnificent to see a herd of 20 or more horses out together, none of them rugged, in varying colours and markings, just being horses. I am so grateful to have found this lovely place for them to live and to see Dee and Red looking so well and happy.

On Wednesday I rode with a couple of friends from Briwnant. I am having to get used to catching the horses again as this is something I rarely had to do while they were at Wyndham. I went into the field and called to Red. He came at a fast canter into the field I was in with the rest of the herd following him! It was quite an amazing sight. Once the herd had settled down, as always he let me halter him without fuss and plodded up the field with me. Unfortunately I could not ride for as long as my friends yesterday, so at the far end of the Wenallt I turned him and we came back on our own. He was unhappy about leaving the others, but he did not misbehave – he is such a good lad.

It felt so peaceful walking back through the woodland together. It was raining a little – a fine misty rain that barely penetrated the leaf cover, and I could feel the woodland's enjoyment of it. The bluebells are still out and the woodland smelt of wild garlic. I felt so privileged to be able to ride such a large and powerful animal and relax in the peaceful atmosphere of Coed y Wenallt. Every now and then Red would remember that he was on his own and neigh and become a little agitated, but after having his mane rubbed and a few quiet words he would settle down again. At one point we spotted two walkers with dogs ahead of us. Red slowed his pace and relaxed, happy to walk behind them. They did not hear us until we were quite close because they had their coat hoods up against the rain. I think Red would have preferred just to follow them to the end of the trail, but they stopped and stood aside to let us pass.

He always gets the most agitated when on his own for the short stretch of road between the end of Wenallt wood and the beginning of Briwnant track. He neighs and keeps breaking into a trot, but once we are on Briwnant's track he settles down again.

This morning I had Dee shod so that we shall be able to take her out on the trails which tend to be rather stony. At first she did not want to be caught. She was happy to have me near her but was not ready to have a halter put on. I just kept gently moving her on and talking to her, and in the end she stood and put her head out for the halter. She then walked through the field with me contentedly. She is looking particularly beautiful at the moment with dapples to her coat as she changes from her winter to her summer coat. She has a couple of marks on her from confrontations with other horses, and a patch of weatherbeat on her rump, but otherwise looks great.

After shoeing I gave her a little feed and returned her to the field. Red had clearly being looking out for her. He neighed to her and trotted over. They greeted each other, rubbing noses, and then wandered off to graze staying close together. They are always close by each other in the field – and Thomas, Red's friend, is usually nearby as well. Thomas stays near Dee when I take Red out even though she is not particularly friendly towards him. It is so lovely that Dee and Red can be together now and that they obviously like to be together – that they share a connection beyond the mere fact that they are owned by the same people.

Challenges

Dee is being quite challenging now that she is home. I think I have to re-establish my relationship with her to some degree – after all I did load her onto a lorry and abandon her for four months. I know she is happy to be back with me and Red, but it seems that we have to start over to some extent. It reminds me of when I first had her and the challenges we had to work through at that time.

I was interested in Victoria's post Dodging a Bullet. She says about Siete: "My lack of trust in her and in myself is like a high fence between us." I feel this too. Although I know that Dee and I have a close connection and deep affection for one another, I am nervous of her when she is loose in the field and can get anxious when catching her. At Briwnant it will be necessary to catch her every time I want to groom her or ride her, so I am going to have to build up my confidence again about doing this. She seems to be full of energy and she and Red are often racing around the field together when I go to check them. Sometimes when I'm in the field she'll decide to shoo off another horse and I worry that I will get in the way and get trampled. When catching her in the past she has sometimes not wanted to be haltered and pulled away from me; or she has let me halter her and then decided to take off, ripping the rope out of my hands. On Sunday she let me halter her and then, as we walking up the field, she suddenly became agitated, reared up and took off. She caught me on the shoulder with a front hoof – nothing serious fortunately, but it adds to my fearfulness. 'ö-Dzin brought her in after that and she was perfectly fine with him, so I do not know what it was all about. She continued to be fine while I groomed her and tacked her and behaved well on our short ride.

This was the first time she had been ridden in four months, and she is still barefoot, so we did not go far and avoided the track and the road. We rode where the ground was soft earth—even muddy and wet in some places—and not for too long. She was certainly up for it and rather lively. She seems to be fitter than she was when she left Wyndham which I think demonstrates well that horses keep their condition at grass rather better than when they are being stabled for a large part of the day. The trail we rode on Briwnant land included a steep hill and they were both keen to lope up it.

The bluebells are in bloom at the moment and the hillsides here about are a beautiful haze of blue blossom, which I hope you can see in the background of the photograph of Dee and Red chasing around after two ponies. It was wonderful riding through these blue haze hills, and the green of the new undergrowth is almost fluorescent it is so vivid.

Catching or being given permission?

I have been wondering whether perhaps my blog is the cause of frustration for Welsh language browsers. I have called it 'Ceffylau' but it contains no Welsh. Perhaps there are lots of Welsh people searching for 'ceffylau' (horses) in the hope of finding something interesting in their own language, yet if they come across my blog it is in English. So I have decided to address this by posting some pages (or parts of pages) in both languages. I apologise in advance for my poor Welsh! Please feel free to correct me. I'm only a learner.

I do not catch Dee every day at the moment - while she is in the field all the time with our yard in quarantine - just several times a week in order to groom her. Whenever I halter her now, I approach her and then simply stand holding the halter open for her and she puts her nose in. This simple connection is so heart-warming and I am amazed that I have owned her for over three years and only just discovered we could do this.

It occurred to me . . . do we ever really 'catch' a horse? Isn't it that whenever we put a halter on a horse to bring them in from the field it is because they have decided to allow this? Could we ever get near enough to do this if they didn't want us to? Surely a horse being 'caught' is their decision to want to be with us and has very little to do with our actually ability to 'catch' them. This slight shift in view is somewhat revolutionary for me and is starting to seep through the habitual patterning of my interaction with horses. I am looking forward to when I am able to start riding again to discover whether Dee continues with this behaviour when having a halter put on her may be the precursor to work.

Dw i wedi meddwl bod fallai mae fy mlog i yn creu teimlad o rwystredigaeth dros porwr gwe iaith Gymraeg. Dw i wedi ei enwi 'Ceffylau' ond dydy e ddim yn cynnwys Cymraeg. Fallai mae llawer o bobl Cymru pwy sy'n chwilio am 'ceffylau' i ffeindio pethau diddorol am eu iaith. Os maen nhw'n ffeindio fy mlog i ydy e'n ysgrifennu yn Saesneg. Felly dw i wedi penderfynu i postio tudalennau (neu rhannau o dudalennau) yn Cymraeg a Saesneg. Dw i'n ymddiheuro ymlaen llaw am Gymraeg anghywir! Cywirwch i fi os gwelwch i'n dda. Dw i'n dim ond dysgwr.

Dw i ddim yn dal Dee pob dydd ar y foment - ers mae hi'n yn y maes yn wastad tra ein stablau sy'n cwaranten - dim ond sawl gwaith yn yr wythnos i'w brwsio. Pan dw i'n dodi i hi ei halter nawr, dw i'n ei gadael ac hi'n dodi ei trwyn i mewn. Maen hyfryd. Dw i wedi meddu Dee am tair blynedd, ac dim ond gynnau fod i wedi sylwddoli bod ni'n gallu gwneud hwn.

Dw i wedi bod yn meddwl . . . dyn ni'n gallu dal ceffly dweud y gwir? Ydw i'n gallu dodi halter ar ceffyl i'w dod o'r maes achos yr ceffyl yn penderfynu i gydweithio? Faswn ni ddim yn gallu dod agos ceffyl os dydy e ddim yn happus? Mae e'n syniad chwyldroadol i fi. Mae e'n syniad bod yn dechrau i newid fy arferion am gweithio gyda ceffylau. Dwi'n edrych ymlaen i marchogaeth eto. Fyddi hi'n ymarweddu fel hwn o hyd pan dw i eisau ei ddal i waith?