Monday 3 October 2011

Twilight Thursdays

Our riding club is based at our Equestrian Park, and so we have access to a great venue. Each Thursday now that Daylight Savings has started, we have a twilight rally after work.

The plan is to get Max to as many of these rallies as I can. Hopefully they will be quiet little low-stress outings for us, and then I might be able to take him out on a few small/short treks. There is only so much riding around in circles that a girl and her horse can cope with!




Max was a bit astonished to be wrapped up and loaded into the float on a weeknight. I was well-armed with Max Snax though, so he went on happily enough. The Park is only a few ks down the road, so it is a quick trip and we were among the first to arrive. He came off the float looking  like a giraffe, and immediately made friends with the two horses at the next-door float. That was going swimmingly until they went off to ride in the other paddock. So panicky little Stress Horse appears, spinning around to the end of his rope and knocking me aside as I tried to put his boots on.

I had started to get some sense back into his brain when someone else arrived, and promptly let go of their horse, who proceded to gallop around the paddock like a manaic. Great! Stress Horse was back and even more hyped up now. Eventually I caught the offender, handed him back to his (completely unembarrassed, unworried) owner, (thanks for that!) and got Max tacked up. I'd added a running martingale so I had something to hang on to in an emergency, and to stop the llama getting his head up too far.

We did a bit of ground work, and wandered about talking to everyone for a while. Then we went off to the PC paddock where I used one of the cross country jumps to get on. Training size rolltop = Max sized mounting block!

He was a bit tense to start with, all googly eyes and llama neck. But we just kept trooping on with some accompaniment from his newest BFF Maurice, until Maurice lost the plot and we went solo. There were people cantering huge circles, thundering past jumping the cross country jumps, horses going sideways in a panic, and the horse-eating sheep - all of which he coped with really well. I was so proud of how he got his brain in gear and got calmer as we went on. We ended by popping over a few little poles (cross training is the way to go for the baby eventer!) and I went home very proud of my little guy.

1 comment:

  1. Max is looking gorgeous and your Thursday evening riding sessions sound fantastic

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