Using a 'break' for the youngsters and for feed advice!
Friday, 20th August 2010
Solie is having a bit of a rest until the beginning of September but, instead of enjoying the break, she appears to be sulking - no doubt she’ll perk up when I take her up to jump in the HOYS wildcard class at Rowallan in a few weeks time though!
In the meantime I have been working on a couple of my Novice horses, Rosa and Lily, taking them to two training shows at Richmond Equestrian Centre and they have gone very well. Rosa is jumping nicely at Discovery (1m) level and the other week Lily got the first rosette of her career, when she was placed 4th in the Discovery class. Last week, I decided to move Lily up a level to Newcomers (1.10m) as she was jumping Discovery level so easily. She had one silly run out at a scary-looking red wall, but was clear apart from that, so I was pleased as she has not seen a lot yet and so the mistake was forgivable. At this stage, I do not chase them against the clock in the jump off. They are both learning and if they come out and jump a generally nice round, I am more than happy with them. I think they are both showing a lot of potential, and are improving every week. It will certainly be nice to have a couple more to compete alongside Solie in the future.
Last week Samantha Wright, my local Baileys’ rep, came out to discuss the nutrition of my horses. They have always been fed on Baileys but I wanted some general advice, especially with regard to what to feed Azon, the mare who had a foal. I found it really interesting to learn a bit more about nutrition. We agreed that Azon had lost her foal weight really quite quickly and so because at this stage she will be giving such a lot to the foal through her milk, Sam advised that I should up her feed. She is now being fed on Stud Cubes rather than No.2 (Working Horse & Pony Cubes) as this is higher in calories to promote weight gain and this is topped up with 5 cups (2.5lbs) of Stud Balancer a day to boost her protein, vitamin and mineral level as the foal is taking a lot out of her. It sounds a lot, but at this stage, we do not want her to lose any more weight, as she would struggle to put it back on with her young foal feeding from her. I explained to Sam that Solie was a fussy eater and tends to graze on her hard feed, sometimes taking all day to eat her morning feed. In general this is not a major concern for me, as Solie is actually eating the correct way that a horse should eat (little and often) but sometimes she does end up leaving quite a bit of feed, and because she is not prone to being overweight, and is in hard work, I wanted to make sure that she was getting enough. Sam suggested I swap her from All-Round Competition Mix onto All-Round Endurance Mix to see if she preferred this formula which was also oat-free. Solie always has plenty of spark and energy, (sometimes a little too much!) so I was sure taking her off the Competition Mix would not reduce her sparkle in the ring. Amazingly, after seven years of trying all sorts of different things to make her eat, she is actually eating up all her feed both morning and night. She still tends to graze on it, but now she is eating her morning feed by lunchtime, and often when we go to do the night check at 9pm after feeding them at 5pm, she has finished her night-time feed also! Result!
We are waiting to hear the results from the hay and grass samples that Sam took for analysis, until I get my finalised feeding plans. I found it all really interesting and Sam even gave me some advice on a different feed for our four dogs! I think is really great that Baileys provide such excellent customer service and I really enjoyed learning a bit more about feeding and nutrition. I have some Baileys’ banners to put up in the arena at home, which will be great to give the young horses something to look at, as they often are quite spooked when they first see that kind of thing at shows.
4-fault-itis and a new arrival!
Thursday, 5th August 2010
We have had a really busy month and I seem to have hardly been at home until now. Solie is having a bit of a break before the winter season and so I am using the time to take a couple of my novice horses out to some local shows.
After returning from my Nations Cup debut in Norway in July, I headed to the British Masters Show at Chester. The show has run for many years, but this year was its first year as an International show. It was open to only the top 30 British riders and so I was really pleased to be invited to jump there, as I am currently ranked 25th in the country. It was very generously sponsored and on the last day featured a £10,000 Grand Prix. Unfortunately Solie and I had ‘4-faultitis’ and each day had a very unlucky fence down which kept us out of the prizes, but she jumped well, and the tracks were big and technical, so I tried not to be too disappointed with the result! Scottish rider Scott Brash won the Grand Prix on Intertoy Z, a horse that he has produced himself, and this year he has been selected to jump on some Superleague Nations Cup teams, so he really is on flying form at the moment.
After Chester, I competed at the Great Yorkshire Show, which is one of my favourite shows of the summer season as it has an amazing atmosphere. It is the one county show where the main attraction of the whole show is the showjumping and the audience are so enthusiastic. Plus, it’s also fairly local to me! Our ‘4-faultitis’ continued on the first day of the show but she jumped well in the BSJA International Stairway class on the second day and finished in 4th place. I was really pleased with that as the Stairway classes have been very big and very technical this year, set at 1.55-1.60 height, so I am pleased to be jumping some consistently good rounds at this level.
The field of riders at the Yorkshire show, as always, was very strong, with the likes of John, Ellen and Robert Whitaker, Tim Stockdale and Geoff Billington, amongst other top names attending the show. The 4th place in this class meant that we qualified to jump in the prestigious "Cock of the North" class which is well-known for its double of 1.60 walls. It is the only class that has this as part of the course, and it takes a brave horse to jump them. Amazingly the field was so strong that not one person in the class had a problem at the walls. I had an unfortunate one down, but she jumped very well and is really starting to prove that she has all the scope and ability of a world-class horse. At only 15.2 she really is an incredible little mare. She has the heart of a lion and will take on the biggest of fences.
After the Great Yorkshire show we headed straight on to Bolesworth Castle show in Cheshire. She jumped well, picking up a couple of placings, but once again in the Grand Prix having an unfortunate fence down. This show was followed by Burgham Horse festival in the north east and on the second day, I won the £1000 Accumulator class. This is a class against the clock, where you obtain points by clearing the fences, 1 for clearing the first, 2 for the second, 3 for the third and so on, with an option at the final fence, one an oxer at about 1.45 worth 10 points and one a vertical standing at 1.65 worth 20 points, but with the risk of you getting minus 20 points if you knock it down. I was fairly early to go, and knew that there was a strong field of riders including Tim Stockdale, John Whitaker, Geoff Billington and Michael Whitaker behind me, so if I wanted to win, I knew I had to be fast across the ground, tight back to the fences, and clear over everything including the final vertical. Solie jumped absolutely fantasticly and our clear round and quick time proved unbeatable. I was so pleased to win a class at this show, and I think a lot of people were happy that a local rider did so well.
When I arrived back from the show at Burgham on the Sunday night, I happened to go in to check on Azon, a mare who was due to go to stud to foal the following week. She was quite warm and also had droplets of milk on her teats. Having never had a mare in foal, I am not all that clued up about when a horse is going to foal, which is why we had intended her to have the foal at a stud, but I realised that these are the signs of the first stages of labour, and so over the next couple of hours I kept checking on her and sure enough, at 10pm I witnessed the birth of my first foal. As a first-time mum Azon was incredible and gave birth to a beautiful little filly called Fiorella which means ‘little flower’ in Italian. Both Azon and Ella are doing extremely well (see photo left), and already, at just a week old Ella is very confident and steady on her feet and is enjoying galloping and bucking round the field. Sadly Azon can never be broken in due to an accident which left her with a permanent head-tilt, but she is a quality mare by the well-known jumping stallion Concorde. Ella's dad is a 5 year old stallion belonging to Carron Niccol called Mr. Visto, who has recently won a 5 year old horse championship in this country, so I have a good feeling that Ella may well be a future superstar.Last week I competed in the prestigious Queen's Cup at Hickstead, which was televised on Sky Sports. Solie jumped an brilliant round and was clear over the fences, but had a foot on the tape of the water jump. Unfortunately, this still counts as 4 faults. We did finish in 8th place but I was so disappointed. She was so close to clearing it, but that's show jumping for you and there is no point in dwelling on what could have been. You have to accept the lows with the highs if you want to show jump fulltime, as it never goes right every time for any rider. We all have good and bad days, and I am lucky enough to have a horse whose good days outweigh the bad ones by far! The sense of achievement when you win a big class make up for all the days when it doensn't go so well.
I'm actually really looking forward to taking my novice horses to local shows now while Solie has a break - it is such a sense of achievement with each little bit of progress that they make. I am like a proud parent when they jump a clear round for me!
2010 so far!
Wednesday, 21st July 2010
We had a bit of a shaky start to 2010. The snowstorms at the beginning of the year had me grounded for 4 weeks, and it was impossible to even ride in the school. (Sadly I don't have an indoor). My covered horsewalker was worth its weight in gold as at least the horses got a leg stretch every day and kept up a bit of fitness. I had intended to take Solie and Rosa (my 5 year old) to the Spanish Sunshine tour in February and March, but due to not being able to get Rosa out to some training shows, I did not think that she would be ready, and so we went with just Solie. It was a long journey out there, taking us 5 days in total – one day to each destination – Dover, Poitiers, Biarritz and Madrid before finally arriving at the showground at Vejer De La Frontera in southern Spain the next day. We were very kindly sponsored by Baileys for the duration of the Sunshine Tour and they provided all of Solie's hard feed for the 5 weeks that we were at the show. Unfortunately Solie was unwell whilst in Spain. She became quite dehydrated and was just not jumping with her usual spark. We did win a class, but on her normal form she would have been in the prizes a lot more often. When we brought her home the Vet took a blood test which showed some abnormalities. There was a suggestion that, whilst she had not contracted it in its full-blown form, she had clearly been exposed to strangles.
She is much better now though and has proved to be well and truly back on form by having two very successful 2* International shows in Ireland in May and June. She was 2nd in the big International Class on the second day at Balmoral in Northern Ireland, winning the Vodaphone Grand Prix there, so just a few weeks later, we took her to Mullingar in southern Ireland where she won the big speed class on the second day, and again won the Grand Prix. From there we travelled down to Devon County Show where she jumped clear round a very big and technical track in the International Stairway class.
Consequently, I received a phone call from Chef D'equipe Rob Hoekstra, asking me if I would like to go jump on the Promotional League British Nations Cup team at Drammen, Norway at the end of June. Obviously, I said that I would be delighted.
Norway was a big test for us. There is definitely a lot more pressure on when you are jumping for the team, because you don't want to let the other team members down, never mind yourself. Solie was clear until the last two fences when she uncharacteristically jumped into the water fence, which resulted in us also having the last fence down. She did the same in the next round. I was pleased with how she had jumped up until the last two fences, but so disappointed to have such a silly error. I always think the water is the most frustrating fence to have faults at... so I was even more disheartened when again in the Grand Prix the following day, she jumped the 1.60 combinations and tricky distances with ease and once again went in the water. I gained some valuable experience from the show and was pleased that Solie had more than enough Scope and ability to jump a track that size. Giving horses and riders the experience to jump consistently at that level is partly what the promotional league Nations Cup teams are about.
Sadly, on the morning that we were returning from Norway, my groom called to inform me that our tackroom had been broken into and all my tack had been stolen, although I was lucky that we had Solie's tack on the horsebox!
My plan for the rest of this month are to compete with Solie at The Great Yorkshire show. It is my favourite county show of the year. The atmosphere is electric and the audience is so enthusiastic. I had a very successful show there last year, so fingers crossed for a repeat performance. After that I will head to a show at Bolesworth Castle near Cheshire.