29/02/2012 by shaun.

..again for 2012 with unmounted training at 6.30 tonight. It lasted until 8pm and we ended up playing “basketball” in the outdoor school. It was great to see those players who got sticks for their Christmas had been practicing and their throwing and catching had improved. The weather was quite mild whilst we were outside and no-one got wet or cold.

And more polocrosse news. On 28th April we are having a Polocrosse Ball at the Windlestrae Hotel in Kinross. Black Tie do aimed at raising some funds and awareness of Polocrosse and hopefully some more players. Tickets are £35.

Rebecca was on the yard today helping. Mollie and Rebecca did the mucking out which meant that Katie and I were able to do admin stuff in the morning. I then taught Garry, Rebecca and the boys from Primary School Support in Clackmannanshire. I don’t know what had happened to them but they were great today and finally seemed to be able to get their rising trot. They even finished off jumping a 5th hole cross pole.

After that we got Heidi in and Rebecca tried riding her/ She was great but kept trying to kick Remy and then bucked Rebecca off. I got on and she was OK with me and Mollie got on and she was OK with Mollie. Clearly she needs to be ridden alot more. Hamish has already offered so watch this space.

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28/02/2012 by shaun.

..with us today. Just drizzle most of the time. These weather forecasters just wind us up. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because our Easter programme of events is out and we are already filling spaces up. It was handed out tonight at Pony Club and it is now on-line. So if you haven’t visited our website recently then click here to go through to the schedule NOW!

Tonight it was individual showjumping at Pony Club and everyone was full of the excitement of the schedule and what is happening at Easter. It clearly went to their heads as lots and lots of people forgot the course. It wasn’t even particularly twisty.

And tomorrow Rebecca is coming down to help on the yard as her prelims are over, so that will be an extra pair of hands mucking out and catching and turning out ponies.

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27/02/2012 by shaun.

..at the ready because according to anyone who might know this sort of thing we are going to have a scorchio day tomorrow. Scotland is being blessed with the warmest day in February ever. I have several horses in tonight who are too sweaty to rug up and they will be going out rugless tomorrow. It would be great if the day was so hot that it dried up all the mud but somehow I doubt it.

Anyway, today was a day when we had no lessons during the day. I was meant to teach Kym, whom I had forgotten about last week and stood up. Argh, mea culpa. So this week I was determined to not forget. So was she ‘cos she texted me yesterday. Quite right too. And then she called to say that she had pulled a muscle in her back and wouldn’t be able to come. So we have had to postpone the lesson until next Monday. I don’t know what I was doing last week to forget her. Its the first time I have been off the yard when I should have been teaching.

So lets see what the weather is like tomorrow. I’ve just gone and reset my thermometer so we will even know what the temperature max and minimum is. The current temperature on it is 10 degrees C. At 9.30pm on a February night. Wow!

So today was spent mucking out quickly in the morning and then heading off for a meeting in the afternoon (before Kyms lesson). And then this evening I had the usual 4 lessons in a row and got great help from Mollie and Katie between lessons that made the whole change over between lessons really smooth.

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25/02/2012 by shaun.

..is wanting to know what we are doing during the Easter Holidays. This is currently being worked on and we are hoping to get a schedule out next week. I’ll post it on the website at the same time.

So today was a busy Saturday again and we had a mixed bag of lessons. Some serious flatwork, trying to get cantering or working on shoulder in (not the same class!). A bit of jumping (finishing with some bareback jumping) and even a session of polocrosse. Jasmine was in this lesson and so it was her first experience of polocrosse and she took to it straight away. Happy with the polox stick she was great when it was picked up and then passed and finally when she had it thrown at her rider. She even coped with a poor catch that resulted in the spongy ball hitting her neck. Then she was even great in the hurley burley of a game.

The weather was truly awful, with rain most of the day and a really cold wind blowing. It was just as well we had the indoor school to keep us dry.

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23/02/2012 by shaun.

.. between these two photos

The first is this morning when Freya and Katie set off to walk to school. Freya riding Louise..

and the second is when Freya and Katie arrived at school on Peppermint..

So why did Freya hack to school this morning. Well as part of our lent we have decided to give up driving for any journey of less than 2 miles and so when Freya missed her school bus we had to either cycle her to school or walk. As her bike was in need of some serious TLC, we had to walk and to save Freya’s legs she rode.

She set off on Louise, who decided that she was not going to walk along the 977 with all the lorries and so Katie and Freya had to return and swap onto Pepermint, who happily hacked all the way to school and then back again once we had dropped Freya off. Tomorrow, we are going to hack to the bus stop to make sure Freya doesn’t miss her bus.

That and a few other things meant that we didn’t get started with the mucking out til lunch time and I didn’t finish until 3pm but still found time to school Remy some more. He is getting better at balanced downward transitions, just very slowly. Its probably time to get Diana out to make sure I’m still on the right tracks.

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22/02/2012 by shaun.

..is the name of the day. We are nearing the end of February which also means we are nearing the end of stabling our horses. We usually start keeping the horses and ponies out 24 hours a day from 1 April (as a April Fools trick on the horses). With the mild weather that we are having it looks like we will do that this year. So essentially we only have about 5 weeks of mucking out to go. And now the light is coming back in the morning we are able to turn the horses and ponies out a little bit sooner. By this time next week we will be getting the horses and ponies out into the fields at 6.30 and then mucking out in the hour and a half before the school madness. This will leave me longer to ride Remy, Jasmine, Willow and soon tobe joined by Reba (more of her later).

So today it was still a bit dark at 6.30 but we got half the mucking out done before the school run.

And tonight we had two after school lessons which were pretty good and I have promised everybody that from next week we will run unmounted Polocrosse practice from 6.30 until 8pm on Weds. It will be unmounted so we can all get our eyes in again and also to hopefully get some new starts up to speed with the catching and throwing. Call if you are interested.

And we also are finalising the Scottish Polocrosse Ball in Kinross. The date is 28th April. If you are 16 or over then you can book a ticket to this awareness raiser for this fantastic horse sport.

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21/02/2012 by shaun.

..of Africa on his forehead. Look..

Madagasca has grown and slipped south though.

But I better be careful what I write. The horses clearly read this blog and Jasmine did not like being called a Disney character. I went to ride her today and when I picked out her feet she clobbered me. I know have a very sore leg from her kick. I knew I shouldn’t have got those shoes on her! Ouch.

So I also rode Remy today as well. Pam is one ride up on me because she sat on Kit for 8 to 10 seconds this afternoon before the physio arrived.

Anyway, we had Mounted Games league tonight at Pony Club and set up three lanes of games equipment. We had loads of horses in the arena tonight. I took a photo but sadly the phone didn’t take a great photo and its all blurred. Tomorrow we are planning to rise early and get all the mucking out done before breakfast and then off to the gym before returning to ride the horses (and teach lessons of course). I’ll let you know how well it goes tomorrow.

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20/02/2012 by shaun.

..yesterday. Rachel had her sister (Rebecca) and four friends over and played mounted games for an hour. At the end her little brother got to ride Tisky for five minutes. Last time he rode Tisky he slid off his neck and fractured his arm so it was great to see him wanting to get back on and successfully staying on. Rachel and Rebeccas team drew at the end and everybody had a great party time.

Lessons tonight were great with the first two lessons practicing canter and then we played mounted games. I even had them having to dismount if they dropped equipment and fix it. Usually I run around and pick equipment up for them. Jennifer has been very nervous of cantering and we have been boosting her confidence by keeping her on Harry but tonight I put her on Big Misty for a change. Misty was a star and Jennifer cantered around the arena. She now wants to ride Misty again and has promised to let go of the pommel next time. Yippee, success.

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19/02/2012 by shaun.

..character. Because apart from being a princess she disnae canter on the left rein. Boom boom.

This week we have been very busy, with half term activities being full to the brim. On Wednesday we had a play day where we played games on horseback. This is not PC Mounted games but things like Fox and Hound and Handkerchief Snatch. We even played some waterloo All of it was for fun and no competition bit to it. It was great fun. Then on Thursday we had an Accumulator day. In this we started with showjumping in the morning, followed by mounted games and then waterloo and polocrosse. All the competitors got points for there placing in each activity, 6 points for first, five for second etc. At the end of the day rosettes were awarded for the total points. Finally, on Friday we had a jumping extravaganza, with showjumping and then a scurry, a pairs round and a horse and rider round (jump half the course on a horse then dismount and jump the other half carrying a toy pony). Finally we did a chase-me-charlie for fun.

Anthony took video of the chase-me-charlie, so I am hoping that we can get that on U-tube soon. In the meantime I have got some photos of the days.

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13/02/2012 by shaun.

..weight on and has a walk around the arena for ten minutes with Katie on her back. She showed no signs of unsteadyness or lameness so we are hoping that her break is completely healed. Great news if it is. Holli seemed to really enjoy having a rider on her back.

The horses and ponies went out really happily today and were really keen to get out and roll around in the mud. I think that their winter coats are coming out and they are using the mud to help lift the hair off them. Kit had to stay in the pony pens though because of her bruised sole. And Pam can’t ride her at the moment.

In lessons today Merlyn was great, cantering around with Andy and really getting into it. His transitions were fabulous and he really seemed to like it. We gave Willow the night off, Garry rode her on Sunday and she was a bit naughty with him. We think she is coming into her first season and its a bit sore on her sides. It’ll pass and she’ll be back to normal again. And Jasmine continues to refuse to transition into canter on the correct lead on the left rein, so we are getting her into canter and then asking for (and getting) a flying change onto the correct lead. Then cantering around on the correct lead should help her to build up her balance and strength.

And Hannah and I drew the riding competition last week, so I think that is 1 win and 2 draws to Hannah, 1 win and a draw to me, 1 draw to Pam, and no wins to Hamish. Robyn is talking about entering the riding competition next week and the week after.

And finally, we have some purple crocuses up in the garden. I couldn’t take a photo of them because my camera battery went flat and I haven’t been able to charge it up all day. I’ll get them photographed tomorrow.

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