The First Outing of the Endurance Season 2017.

The horses’ work is continuing to be full on with Dilmun and Fantom having now completed four weeks’ steady walking work building up to 1.5 hours per day, Chiara alternating between schooling, lunging and groundwork sessions and faster training sessions and Wizard ticking over being ridden approximately three times a week. There is, however, light at the end of the tunnel as ‘the boys’ move into the next phase.  They are still being exercised by riding and leading for the most part but now I will introduce short spells of trot work and mini schooling sessions.  It is, however, important to not trot for more than five minutes on the road in a session to avoid unnecessary and unproductive concussion but rather to introduce the trotting on more giving surfaces. Chiara’s schooling in walk and trot, transitions, leg yielding and turns on and around the forehand appears to have improved immensely and is almost established.  Reining back on command is also coming on well and should be good enough to try on gate opening which, after all, is the main reason for teaching it.  Longer training sessions are, however, still a little problematical as once Chi has been somewhere she reckons she knows it and the next time she needs to go as fast as possible, throwing caution to the wind.  There is not an infinite amount of variety in our routes so some kind of compromise must be reached. The first outing of the endurance season was all for Wizard; the much-promised pleasure ride around the beautiful Colquite estate and along the Camel trail.  This was only about half an hour away as we are so lucky in Cornwall to have such a variety of different types of ride.  This one is mostly woodland, tracks and a little farmland.  Although at this time of year it was pretty muddy, Wizard didn’t mind this one bit and tackled the whole thing with his customary enthusiasm.  I hope I will be able to get him to another one later in the year but with the packed programme involving the other three, I can’t promise him that. To do my bit to assist my horses by making sure I am riding straight and in balance, I booked myself a session on a mechanical horse with a lesson by Felicity Mann BHSI who also practices the Alexander Technique.  Although I had an hour and a half drive to Felicity’s immaculate yard, it was well worth it with slight but important adjustments being made to my position whilst riding ‘Eric’ the mechanical horse, in all three paces.  I now feel much more confident of my ability to remain in a central position and to make any small adjustments needed to ensure that I am as ‘in tune’ with the horses as possible. A couple of weeks ago we had our first International squad session.  This was a get together without the horses where we listened to our Chef and the Management Team and gleaned much information on training methods, prohibited substances, for both horse and humans; shoeing and physio as well as exercises to improve rider fitness. All four of my horses look so well at the moment and are clearly feeling extremely full of joie de vivre.  Thanks in part must go to Feedmark for the wonderful supplements.  Dilmun and Chiara are on Hardy Hoof as they are prone to soft feet, especially with all the mud at the moment.  Their feet are now rock hard and they seem able to just float over the stony tracks much of their work is done on.  I am thinking that maybe Fantom, although usually with iron hard hooves, could probably do with some as the mud has definitely made his soles softer and his frogs more prone to thrush.  Dilmun and Wizard, as they spend a lot of time inside, have Clarity to help keep their airways clear and this is working so well for them, not a cough or sniffle between them. This weekend Fantom and I are off to our first squad assessment; all the way to Milton Keynes.  Fingers crossed everything goes well!