07/03/2012 by shaun.

..one day today. With glorious sunshine when Garry and I took Willow and Remy out for a hack and gallop. The horses seemed to really love it athough Remy was a bit spooky at times. I think it must be the grass coming through and him having alot of sugar in his bloodstream.

Then we had snow in the afternoon when I was teaching the boys from Primary School Support. There was a snowstorm and the snow settled for about 10 minutes. Lewis joined us again from PSSS and it was nice to see him again and to see that he hadn’t forgotten the riding. Everyone thinks we should put Calvin on Bobby too help him stay focussed (Calvin not Bobby). There was also a hailstorm when I was bringing the ponies in.

Of course it rained, during the 4.30 lesson, but we were at least under cover.

We did jumping in the lessons tonight and then had unmounted polocrosse practice where we practiced passing and catching at run and then played Tennis. The other team (not mine) won 5 games to 1. We had the moral victory though. Not sure why but we did.

Posted in So what happened this week | No Comments »

05/03/2012 by shaun.

..and here’s the picture to prove it.

Now these actually appeared on Friday 2nd March. Looking back at the blog last year these very same daffs flowered on 24th March, a whole 3 weeks earlier. That is a very impressive difference.

And to further highlight the springyness of the weather we also had butterflies on Saturday in the pony club room…

At one point we could count 6 tortoiseshells fluttering around. We tried feeding them sugar water, lollies and bananas.

And today was a glorious day with clear blue skies so we were really able to see the smoke rising from the remains of the burning Gartwhinzean Hotel. We woke up at 6.15 and noticed loads of smoke over the hill but couldn’t quite work out where it was coming from. As it turns out the Hotel had caught fire. Fortunately, I don’t think anyone was hurt and the flames are now out but at 3.30pm it was still burning.

The blue skies during the day though have resulted in a rather cold night and we are expecting a frost tomorrow morning. I hope the poor daffodils can cope with this.

Posted in So what happened this week | 1 Comment »

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.

Posted in So what happened this week | No Comments »

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.

Posted in So what happened this week | No Comments »

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.

Posted in So what happened this week | 1 Comment »

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.

Posted in So what happened this week | 1 Comment »

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.

Posted in So what happened this week | 1 Comment »

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.

Posted in So what happened this week | Comments Off

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.

Posted in So what happened this week | 1 Comment »

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.

Posted in So what happened this week | 1 Comment »