05 September 2009

Schooling at Home

Asked Richard to come out and fix my truck, so figured might as well get a couple of flatwork photos for the blog.







Taupo for XC Schooling

& I DIDN'T GET WET!!!

Went with Ky and Kylee to Taupo to go schooling for the weekend. With the last trip to Taupo being a little disappointing with me ending up in the water jump, I was understandably a little nervous about what sort of horse I had taken down with me. The old Flynn was so whimpy about XC jumps that he'd slide to a stop at an intro log if he hadn't seen an xc jump in a little while. Well thankfully the old Flynn has long gone, we started off over some PreTraining logs which he flew over, then straight into a PreTraining chevron, which he just lined up and went at it. Ok, cool, scrap the baby jumps then, lets just go for the training ones, which he did without a single hesitation, including over the logs into the water where we had parted company 2 years ago. Gosh I love the new Flynn, feels so confident, he really just takes you into the jumps without the slightest feel of doubt. No photos from day one as we all rode together.

Day two was a bit wet by the time I rode, but on the plus side, got heaps of photos! Started jumping anything and everything in front of us, including a big intermediate roll top and quite a few Novice jumps. Then remembered that I was just there to practice over the PreNovice stuff in preparation for our PN start at Taupo in October, so settled down and just did them instead. Figured that I am planning on having Flynn for a long time, so no point pounding him over the bigger jumps when I really just want a nice PreNovice horse for the time being :)











Flynn's baaaaack

So Flynn was turned out on the 3rd of May for 3 months holiday at his aunty Louise's place. No feed and only 1 bale of hay was consumed and he came back in FAT!! Like heavily pregnant broodmare fat! And with the joys of being a hairy stationbred, he also came back in looking like a red yeti!

First things first, Ky came out & clipped him for me, so that he look 10x more presentable. Sadly, didn't change how fat he looked LOL He was great for his first ride, not even needing to be lunged, just hopped on and went for a wander around the PC grounds. Day 2 and even Jannine rode him, he was such a good boy. Day 7 however did end up with a very fresh athletic horse LOL luckily it was just for the 1 ride and we haven't seen any more of that behaviour.

As I was away for the weekend with friends in Ohakune and we were going to Taupo for schooling the weekend after, I needed him kept fit and fed, so he got sent to Angela's for exercise. Very handy! Apparently he was a joy to have around and is allowed back any time :)

So back into it, have moved to a new grazing that has a 60x20 arena with floodlight at one end, stables, 13 acres with 4 horses on it, feed room, tack room, concrete hosedown etc... goal for the season is to do training at Te Rapa 3/4 October, then hit PreNovice at Taupo 17/18 October, with the aim to be ready for the big classes at Richfields end of November and Puhinui in December.