Sunday 20 June 2010

Assessments

Well done to everyone who took part in the recent assessments. There was a really good standard across the board and all the staff assessing were impressed with the standard. There were several riders who showed a remarkable improvement over the last year, showing that our instructional staff are making a great job of training everyone.

Friday 4 June 2010

Latest News

Its been a while since we've updated the blog, so thought this was a good chance to let you catch up on all our latest news.

Archie has now retired!
Good old ARchie has been with us for years, and has done a great deal of work over the years teaching loads of people to ride. We decided that as he had reached the grand old age of 25 it was time for him to retire to the field. He is now happily living out with Aero and Aria, acting as grandad. We were a bit worried he wouldn't settle to retirement as he has always worked, but he has taken to it like a duck to water and spends his days trying to escape past the staff at the gate, and teaching Aria how to behave now she is a big bold 2 yr old.

Rafiki continues to improve
Rafiki is still (slowly) losing weight in the little fatties paddock. She is walking out better now and is less stiff, so we are hoping that she will be able to return to flatwork again soon. She is very happy with herself as she has a good view of the new foal Melody, so she spends most of her time whinnying at her.

Assessments!
Assessments will be running from June 7th - 13th inclusive. We will be assessing all lessons (with the exception of some advanced ones) so make sure you are there to get your assessment sheets!

Summer stable management
The bookings are now open for summer stable management and are filling up fast - if you would like a space, get in touch with reception and we can get you booked onto the best standard of course for your ability.

Website
The website is now beginning to take shape and will soon be online for everyone to see. Kim (our web designer) is very busy graduating and putting on her design show at the moment so she will be finishing the website after the next two weeks.

Update from Belinda and Melody

So, Belinda has had her foal!
Melody is a bay filly with a white star and a white hind sock, who was born on Friday 14th May at around 6 in the morning. We had moved Belinda out to our vets to give birth as she was due whilst Sally was away, so she had the best of care for her labour!
Melody is a full sister to Aria, so we were expecting a foal around the same size, but Belinda got bigger and bigger as her pregnancy developed - she had a very "good" winter chomping on great haylage and hard feed and obviously put a lot of time and effort into growing a big foal.
Melody is around a hand (4 inches) bigger than Aria was when born and has very long legs and big knees and hocks, which can be used to guesstimate her adult height, which we suspect will be a bit bigger than Aria, who stands just under 15 hands at the moment as a 2 year old.
Because Melody was a big big, she was born with slightly scrumpled up legs from where she had been squashed up in the womb. The vets kept her and mum in for a couple of days until her legs had straightened out a bit and she is happily cantering around the field with mum now.
We took her home on Wednesday 3rd June, which was certainly an experience. Belinda has never been brilliant about loading - it takes her about 40 minutes to work out that once she gets up the ramp, there is room for her to turn round, so after 45 minutes of running in and out of the trailer on one of the hottest days of the year, both her and Sally were a bit sweaty. She went in happily eventually and little Melody wondered what all the fuss was about - she just followed her mum up the ramp in a very brave fashion.
They are now both happily sleeping in the sun in their own little paddock at the back of the school and are happy to have visitors as long as they dont' feed them titbits!