Red - the wonder horse

It's been a long time since I posted – and quite an eventful time.  Dee suddenly started to lose condition at the end of the winter.  This clashed coincidentally with our vehicle being off the road for five weeks.  I therefore made an arrangement with Briwnant for them to feed Dee every day for me and she quickly was back to looking better.  It is difficult to get Briwnant without transport – expensive by taxi or a long uphill walk from the nearest bus stop, so this delayed our getting back in the saddle.

I lunged Dee when I could and managed two or three rides over that time.  She now looks fantastic – fit, shiny coat and athletic.  The herd have been in the top fields for the last few weeks.  They have to go right to the top for the best grass, but back down to the bottom for water, so she has had her strengthening exercise just by living at grass.  When I eventually was able to take her round the Wenallt horse trail, she seemed as fit as at the end of last summer.

We've had several nice rides over the last couple of weeks, and my elder son, Daniel, came out with me last Wednesday.  This was good because it gave me the opportunity to ride Red for a change.

When we first decided to put Red on working livery at Briwnant I had my concerns.  I do not think Dee's experience of working livery was very good most of the time at Pontcanna, but Red is having a great time.  As well as the lessons and treks he does for the riding school, he also gets schooled regularly and this has included some jumping.  Now some time ago I commented on my blog that I thought Red was a good horse and could potentially be a very good horse with an experienced and more capable rider than me to bring him on.  This is happening for him at Briwnant.  They have a new tutor, Alfie, who is an experienced and excellent rider, and he has been putting Red through his paces.  It turns out that Red is a bold and confident jumper and we are going to start competing him in a few weeks with Alfie riding him.  He is such an extraordinary horse.  'ö-Dzin can ride him perfectly safely and he will be quiet and well behaved.  They put beginners on him for lessons.  Yet he can also be a powerful, forward-going and adventurous horse. 

This afternoon we went back up to Briwnant to watch Red in his jumping practice.  Unfortunately there was a mix up over the time and Red had already been jumped and fed by the time we arrived.  So we watched Alfie jumping Saffron (below) and then Kalif.  He is a brilliant rider.  He told us they put the jumps up to the top notch when they are training Red.  I can't wait to see that and will definitely post some photos when we have them.

Arena game

I've been working hard on websites and things over the last two weeks, and have not been finding time to blog. I'm pleased with the results of the work, however. I have a new Spacious Passion website that looks much more how I want it to look. The old site was powered by Joomla and I could never work out how to adjust the details of it, so I was never satisfied with it. The new site is powered by 'ö-Dzin's software to my design – it is great to have so much control.

Two weeks ago, Wyndham Livery was burgled and all the tack was stolen from the tack locker. This means I also haven't been able to ride, because I haven't had a full set of tack. Consequently I have been lunging Red rather than riding him. He's not been too impressed with this. It was a premeditated break in – they knew exactly what they needed to do to get at the tack, and sawed through metal gates and the door of the metal tack locker with an angle grinder. Needless to say, our insurance doesn't cover it.

We also played a game with him in the arena, based on an idea from Carolyn Resnick's blog. After lunging, we let him free. 'ö-Dzin stood at one side of the arena, and I stood the other side – both of us equipped with a bag of carrot treats. We called Red to us. When he came he got a piece of carrot – but only one piece. The other person then called him. If he wouldn't leave after his treat, we drove him away by waving a line. It took him a long time to get the idea, and even then didn't seem too sure. I don't think Red is very bright. We stopped on a success before he started to get either bored or frustrated.

We tried the game again the following day, however, and something had sunk in, because he got it right straight away. Unfortunately we were not able to carry on with him at liberty, because another horse was brought into the arena for lunging. This horse had been on box rest for a few days, so it went slightly beserk on the lunge line – galloping round and round with its tail up and snorting. Red got a little over excited, forgot to notice where I was, and almost trampled me. We decided to take him in.

Playing this arena game brought up a sharp yearning for Dee. She is such a quick and intelligent horse – she would have got the idea really quickly. I have been missing Dee a lot recently. I think when we first moved her to her retirement home in Cornwall, it was such a relief to be free of the anxiety and work of two horses that I did not feel the loss of her. Now that it is easier and less work, I've had time to let missing her arise. Hopefully, now the weather is warming up, we shall soon be able to reschedule our visit to see her. She will probably ignore me when we visit her, but at least I shall be able to see that she is well and happy.