November 21, 2006

water

Was actually sunny last night, so had a good ride. Silvi has put on a bit of weight and is feeling quite good. After fluffing around doing some warmup I took her down to the creek and walked through a few times, then found the most recent floods had carved away a semi-safe looking drop into the water. About 50cm of water, and about 70cm of bank above that - so I walked Silvi up to it and she pounced off (caught her in the mouth a little, but gave her lots of pats and then walked through the lower areas to make sure she hadn't got a fright). But yeah, very pleased with that.

Then did some exercises on changing the tempo of her trot - she must have felt like she worked hard as she ate her whole dinner which she hasn't been doing lately with all the good grass around.

November 19, 2006

foal: zak

Update: foal turned out to be a colt after all! How annoying... It'll have to wear the pink halter anyway!

Okay, so I didn't ride Silviapples today - instead I went to go see Odette's new foal. Foal's paddock name is currently 'Zak' and lots of arguements about what his show name will be, but he's less than a week old and is very cute.


Odette was her usual self as you can see down here with the photo of her 'looking' at the dog, a few seconds later she's chasing the dog trying to eat it for breakfast:


And closer pictures of little Zak:


He's fairly timid, but seems very curious. Hope he'll make a showjumper!

November 18, 2006

this weather sucks

Seriously - rain every day this week. Horse has only been ridden a couple times since Battle Hill, and I went out this morning to ride (just a quick ride) and the bridge was flooded and the ground was slippery. Just not very fun. The jumping day that was going to be on today has been postponed to 16th December.

Good news is we got 4th at Battle Hill ODE last weekend! Got a ribbon in the mail yesterday - nice big sash. Very cool.

November 13, 2006

battle hill

Headed out eventing at Battle Hill on Sunday. Up at 5.30am - Mum had come down the night before to drive, and Nick was coming out as photographer and support person, so everyone had to get up early. I swear we don't have to get up this early for showjumping.

Loaded and travelled extremely well. Warmed up quite nicely for the dressage and did what I thought was a very nice test. Marks were all quite close together for the class though:


While warming up we did notice her get her tongue over the bit, which might explain all the head flicking last weekend. Must do up noseband a bit tighter when she's doing dressage. I was really pleased with her though, think she was 3rd or 4th after the dressage.


Showjumping was a bit of a mixture. She took 3 rails, all just lazy back legs. She's gone past the green stage of overjumping everything, and is now being too economical in her jump, but I do think that between raising the fences and a bit of schooling at home the rails won't be an issue. What was awesome was how she went - a perfect showhunter round... right leg every time, lovely rhythmic canter the whole way, and she really does come back perfectly for cornering:


No troubles at the cross country start this time - walked in calmly and then trotted out happily. She was a bit spooked at the first few fences with the fence judges sitting on the jumps, but by jump 3 she was in full swing. Gave me a perfect XC run, with just 20 faults at the very last fence (though after watching the video I wouldn't have penalised it as she kept moving forward/sideways). So I am really stoked:


She certainly didn't have a problem with the hills or the variety of fences, and I think she's about ready to try a pre-training run somewhere:


Cantering through the flags - she looks like a fat little pony:


After all that we didn't wait around for scores, but I drove the truck home! All the way back to the grazing, with Miss Silviapples in the back. No scrambles or stumbles either. Impressive I thought.

November 10, 2006

cold

Obviously pony was cold on Wednesday - as I switched her to a midweight rug which she prompty ripped off and left hanging around her neck for another grazer to discover. So I went and put a heavy rug back on her (much happier pony for it). Have only ridden her once this week due to the weather - and have a show on Sunday. Feel rather under prepared!

November 07, 2006

actionshots

Fabio from Actionshots was at Solway on the weekend, and he got some really awesome photos of Silviapples. You can see all of the photos on his webpage here.

I'd like to get at least one photo of Silviapples, maybe 2 because I think they look really lovely. But which ones to get?

Showjumping first fence, and oxer:


Showjumping double, and XC mobile:


XC bank (corner option), and ramp:


Think they are really awesome photos - and I'm so proud of how confident Miss Apples looks on the crosscountry. Hopefully this weekend goes even better (if the rain stops!).

grass

Moved Silviapples last night, into a paddock up the back with lots more grass. Let's hope she puts on a bit more weight up there.

November 05, 2006

third show!

Saturday was a pretty long day for everyone involved. 5 hours travel (a huge thanks to Swifty for getting up early and driving 99.8% of the way - though I did have a little drive from Masterton to Carterton on the way back, very brave I reckon). It was a pretty good first eventing outing though - no placing, but I'm happy with how she went.

These are my 2 favourite photos - the last fence in the showjumping, and the bank/corner in the XC (we did the corner option, what a clever pony!).


Warmup for the dressage didn't go too badly. She was good around the other horses. She got a little annoyed with the insects and I think I'll have to start putting repellant on her.


The dressage itself was rather awful. It was beginner test D, and she had absolutely nothing to keep her mind on it and just wasn't listening at all... combine this with her thinking the arena was electric fence and yeah, not a great score. Though she did get and 8 for her canter work.


Showjumping was brilliant. It was her first time doing a course and she really stepped up to the mark. She got on the wrong lead a few times, but came back well and did a very steady clear round.


After being incredibly nappy coming away from the other horses through the start flags, once she got on her way Silvi did a beautiful XC round too. She jumped every fence clear, and was really good about all of the combinations and different things on course (bank, drop, ditch etc). The second photo below is over the last fence which was a really cute little mini palisade.


So we didn't come home with a ribbon, and there are some things to work on, but all up I was really pleased with how she went.

November 02, 2006

long and low

Yesterday I tried to get Silviapples working in a longer and lower frame yesterday and she was pretty good, not stretching down heaps, but a little less upright than normal. Will probably just do more of the same tonight and perhaps a big trot around the flat paddock.