Kyrewood - Grace

Friday (Boxing day) we packed up the truck to head up to Kyrewood. 5 horses and 3 humans, and we were on our way up to Kyrewood. We arrived while it was still light and very sunny/warm.. popped the horses into their yards with dinner and attempted to make dinner for ourselves (I do not recommend cooking quiche in a frypan). Saturday morning started off very early, but you could tell the sun was going to come out scorching for the day.

Alicia had come up with her horse, Amy - and I'd had Alicia scheduled in to ride Kody for me in the pleasure hack classes (as I'm not eligible)... seems that Kody had other plans and got a little cut on his back a few days before which put him out of action. So the newest of the clan, Grace, had to step in!

Grace is 10, but hasn't had a lot of outings. The longish journey in the truck, plus staying overnight, then a busy showgrounds with loudspeakers and decorations around the place could easily have been a good excuse for her to misbehave. Instead, Grace really kept her head screwed on. She took the first class to get accustomed to the other horses crowding her but then settled in nicely and got called in for a few classes as well:

Gracey was only entered in a few flat classes (just taking the entries I'd originally done for Kody) -but they weren't one after the other. So she had a lot of standing outside the ring, and rider hopping on and off. Swifty was taking photos for me (as I was on the other side of the grounds doing Hunter classes), so he had to take photos and hold horses - but luckily both Grace and Amy behaved well ringside and mostly just went to sleep. A few more pics of Grace in the ring:

This was Alicia's first ever ride on Grace, and I was pleased with how the combination went. I was also itching to see what Grace was like to ride in the show atmosphere myself, so I hopped on later and had a little trot around... she was a bit stiff/tired by this stage, but still calm and easy.

Because Grace was so good I can't wait to get her down to the arena for a reminder of what jumping is all about, so that I can get her out to some local showjumping and showhunter competitions.

Grace didn't have any classes on Sunday, and spent pretty much the whole of the day in the yards without any company (except for a few haynets!) and didn't call out to other horses or make a fuss. She was quite tired by the time we got home last night though, I think it was a pretty full-on weekend for her, even though she didn't do many actual classes.