Um, catch up?

So where were we? Ah yes, I'd just finished a weekend of showjumping in Ballinasloe. I took the bank holiday weekend off. There was a big 4 day show in Mullingar but the entry fees were too high, especially seeing as we were still working on getting to a place of confidence and consistency.

Instead I helped out at my local riding club show, scribing for the show jumping judge. Every day is a school day and you should use it!


Tuesday I went to donate platelets up in St. James hospital, Dublin ( if you can you should donate, look up www.giveblood.ie for more information). Unfortunately my iron levels were to low to be able to. That really explained a lot with the whole tiredness etc in the last month. Time to start looking after myself!!
On the way home I got to surprise one of my best friends who has just moved back to Ireland. I hadn't seen her in two years and she was shocked when I arrived at the door- I do love a good surprise (and a good catch up!)!!

That week myself and Cu Chulainn hacked out in the fields mostly, walk, trot and canter. Nothing exciting, except that we were out in the field, going through the wooded area. Fred was back in action too. With him I was able to work on slightly harder things, such as walk to canter and canter to walk. The first is grand, the latter, uck, sooo damn hard. It felt great to be back doing harder flatwork, although my legs and muscles would disagree!! I am still a terror for not stretching properly and it always comes back to bite me.

Not impressed

Our arena

Fred is always hungry

On Sunday we headed west to the Headford gymkhana. For some reason I was really nervy. Just not feeling it. I decided I'd enter the first class and see how we went. Our first class was the ladies 1.10. It looked fine, not too big and course was fairly straight forward. I went and tacked up Cu Chulainn and then headed for the warm up. It took us a while to warm up as there were no other riders so I had to get down to put up jumps for a while, but then others arrived.  Cu Chulainn warmed up unreal. He was flying high. So I went in feeling pretty good. The confidence was up a bit more. We flew through the first round clear, but a lapse of concentration meant we had one down. But then I stupidly, thought we were finished but missed the last jump!! So had to turn around and do it. Idiot. Won't happen again. I was delighted though!! When I got back to the box I noticed he'd lost a shoe. AAhhh crap. I rang Seamus to tell him how the class went, I was delighted with CC. He said not to bother jumping again unless I could get the shoe back on. So we watched some more jumping and then headed home nice and early. Ya gotta know when to call it a day and end on a good note!

Rusty trying to guilt trip a stranger into giving him food

Cu Chulainn got a few days off after that and Fred continued with his work. He was feeling in top form and loving the workload. He felt like a 4 year old some days!! Yee haw!

Enjoying the views

Lush grass!

Have a break have kitty kat!

The cool down

On Tuesday I brought the boys to Galway Equestrian Centre for the weight clinic with Bluegrass Horsefeeds. Both boys are in prime condition at the moment, Fred possibly in show condition 😄 They got weighed and had a worm count each. Cu Chulainn weighs in at 550kg, which is about spot on for a horse his size. Fred is 650kg and not too over what he should be, he's a lot bigger and chunkier than CC in his build. CC's worm count wasn't too bad and I got advice on what wormer to give him. Fred was a bit worse and would have to get a 5 day wormer. I plan on sending them off again at the end of the summer. We got a nice little goody bag too.

I'm just big boned!!

And we're off!

I went back that evening for the information talks with my friend Caroline. They had a lady called Catherine there from Kentucky Equine research there to give nutritional talks.  I found the information on the convalescence horse really interesting, but the best part was the talk by vet Philip McManus. That was really fascinating. He recommended using horse physios and acupuncture before going down the route of x-rays and more serious investigations. He talked about how many issues are now solved using these more simple and less invasive methods. Can't wait till they do another one!