SNOWMAGEDDON

As we all know at this stage there was a bit of the white stuff last week…………just a bit.
There are polar bears starving in the world and we’re getting blizzards in March, but hey, there’s no such thing as ‘climate change’………..

The cats like to help with the morning feeding ( snoopy is camouflaged)

Some view!

Hay - check, Cat - check, Work laptop - check

White carpet

Not a sinner on the road

 

I didn’t get to ride after the ‘Super Sunday’ until the Friday when I had a lesson with my dressage instructor. I was so tired after the week going that I hummed and hawed about cancelling it. But I was so glad I didn’t. He went sooo well and really engaged his hind quarters. We did shoulder-in and leg-yielding on a circle, as it’s easier to get him doing it correctly on a circle. He was wary of my instructor sitting in the corner, but that was all. Best pony. She said he’s improving every time she sees him. Wahoo

On Sunday I brought Cu Chulainn over the road to do some unregistered SJI. CC hasn’t jumped properly since we finished our competitions last November. We’ve popped a few small ones, or some branches out in the field, but that’s all.
The SJI was in the outdoor arena, which I love as it’s absolutely mahoosive and gives you lots of time to prepare and fix yourself for the jumps (sometimes a good thing, sometimes a bad thing!). It was a beautiful sunny day, but bitingly cold, and idiot here forgot her coat!
I put him in for the 90cm and 1m. He knocked one jump in the warm up and that’s when I held him up too much. I have an issue with knowing when to let them go for the jump and stop holding them, but we’re getting there.
He was a tad bit excited for the 90s and it was not pretty from me, but he went double clear. But then for the 1m he was chill bill and jumped lovely, again going double clear. He managed to jump one from nearly a standstill as we came in wrong (pilot error). It felt really nice and he was happy out to be jumping again.
*There's a video on my Facebook page - The Irish Horse Life

Monday is nearly always a day off for all of us, so we chilled. Tuesday I was going to go over the road to practice our flatwork, but decided to leave it until Wednesday for our jumping lesson. We all have regrets…. The weather warnings have been all over social media for the last few days, but for once Galway wasn’t in it, it was all Leinster and Munster. Alas, the optimism I had with the snow not coming this far did not last long. It was cold and dry with us for a good while. Tuesday the snow started. But then Wednesday it hit hard. The roads weren’t great and we had to cancel the lesson. I got picked up for work on Thursday by one of the lads as it was so bad.  From Thursday after work to Saturday night I was at home. It doesn’t seem that long now, but my god did cabin fever set in.….. Like most people I watched TV/Netflix but I didn’t even have the concentration to watch anything of any real interest so I watched crap and then I watched crap I’d already watched………the joys.

Hellllloooooooooooooo

I sits where I fits

On Friday the water to the stables froze. Nightmare. I left the boys in as it was constantly snowing and it was cold and in your face and they wanted to stay in in their nice warm stables. I took many videos of what we got up to over the snow days and I’ll have them up on the Facebook page.
I took CC out for a look around the land to see how snowed in we were. There was a big drift on the lane that I usually go up, he wasn’t too sure of it, but we went through it. We walked around two fields (including where we’d jumped only a few weeks ago). Some sheep had broken in to one of them and he was sceptical. Then we went for a nice relaxed canter which immediately turned into a hell for leather gallop, but sure, why not? 

My face when I have to manually get water.......

Notice the broken handles on bucket 😢😢

Snowmageddon took hold then. Between mucking out, feeding out, and the bloody water (my two drink more than Boris Yeltsin!!) I was killed out. I tidied out the stables & tack area on Saturday and drew up on a board our weekly riding to see how we are doing (which reminds me I need to fill it in).

 

Snoopy 'helping'

I was trying to get a photo of the new saddle rack up and someone just had to be in every photo!!

Fred is happily munching hay rather than being out in the snow #spoilt

Eventually he returned to eating

Guard horse

'Check out the new saddle rack'

Bridles & head collars

Snug as a bug in his rug

It prob looks messy but I swear it's neat!

I didn’t ride again until Tuesday when I brought CC over the road. We put our flatwork lesson into practice and did shoulder-in and haunches-in. He’d been ridden very little for the last few weeks and getting fed oats and he was as cool as a cucumber. We popped the course a few times and I’d great difficulty with a related distance. A related distance is anything over 2 strides between two obstacles and a horse stride in canter is roughly 12 feet (I read somewhere that at full pelt Usain Bolt is the same!). I have difficulty in figuring out how many strides I am going to get between jumps and when to push the horse on to make a jump or to steady him up. It definitely doesn’t come naturally to me. If you have ever watched the Aga Khan or similar on telly, you’ll see the riders walking the course beforehand and measuring the strides between fences, I don’t do this. Not because I’m an expert or anything, but for two reasons mainly. One, I don’t like looking at the jumps I’m going to jump as I psyche myself out thinking;  ‘jesus, they’re a bit big aren’t they?’. And two, because as soon as I start jumping anything stride-related goes straight out the window!! I only knew last night that the double was one stride because Damien told me like a gazillion times………it didn’t matter though, I got two strides  lol.
 
This weekend myself, Cu Chulainn and my friend Caroline will be heading West to OWER equestrian to try a Working Hunter qualifier for the Northern Ireland festival in Cavan Equestrian Centre in April. Jumping-wise I have every faith in CC, but it’ll depend how he behaves and what the judge is looking for after that. Here’s hoping we qualify!!