Monday 27 June 2011

Assessments are over and poor Reggie

Yipee! The assessments are finished. Sally has spent the last seven days assessing over 300 weekly riders and she has square eyes from looking at her laptop and repetitive sprain injuries from typing! We were delighted with the standard that everyone rode at in their assessment - we already knew we had great staff, but this just proves it as the standard was higher than ever. The new way of delivering the assessment sheets seems to work well with the riders collecting them the next week, as it saves us running late for each class from giving out the sheets to the previous class. As normal, if anyone has any questions about their assessment, they can just ask Sally or their regular instructor to explain things. It will hopefully be a nice quiet week for everyone now so that they can recover from assessments.
We were also delighted with Hannahs results at Stage 3 - she passed her riding exam with flying colours, making her a full BHS A.I. The stage 3 exam is a difficult one, with a high standard and we're delighted she passed it as she put so much hard work into her riding in the months leading up to the exam. Martin is away doing his today, and his reports back are good so far in that he got through the jumping and flatwork - we'll need to wait 10 days for his results though, so fingers crossed!
On another note, poor Reggie got kicked in the field last night. It was his own fault really, as he has taking to "playing" with his pals Monty and Amos, and was seen climbing on their backs. One of them has obviously given him a kick to his forearm, and he has a small cut and a lot of swelling on it. Our first concern was that it was close to the joint, but it is just above it - however for safetys sake, we will be getting an x-ray done of his leg on Friday to make sure there are no small cracks or fractures. He is sound on it and happy in himself, but we want to be on the safe side as he's such a lovely chap. The small cut on his leg has bled quite a lot as he has nicked a blood vessel, so we're keeping an eye on it and if it doesn't stop the vet will revisit him tonight to try to dress the wound to stop it bleeding.

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Belinda is happy again!

So Belinda has now spend 10 days away from her baby Melody after the initial stressful seperation. We kept her in her stable rather than turning her out after her gate jumping incident, so good old Archie moved in with Melody and Aero to keep them company. We then reintroduced Belinda today who proceeded to chase poor Archie around and annoy him. He is so good though, he just keeps out of the way and looks at Belinda as though she is slightly mad - he's a great companion.
Melody came in and got her feet trimmed today and she was very good, standing to have them trimmed and tidied. More excitingly, for the first time in 2 years we finally managed to get Dinkys back feet trimmed properly. Dinky is terrified of farriers - when we first got her she was very nervous at being handled in general and whilst she has slowly become better and more confident, she still has an issue with getting her feet done. We keep her unshod to reduce her (and the farriers) stress, but it is nearly impossible to lift her back feet. So she was sedated today by the vet with special drugs so she was sleepy and then she didn't really notice her feet being done. Well done Dinky!
Assessments are still being done - we are doing them electronically this year, so our riders will collect their forms a week after their assessments rather than right after the class, but it is working well so far because we can do the assessments faster and keep a clear record of everyones standard for future assessments.

Monday 13 June 2011

New Jumps!

We have ordered our fancy new jumps which we are buying with our membership fees this year. We have ordered a set of 12 wooden show jumps and 15 portable x country jumps. We are hoping that the x country jumps will be put in the runway field (just down from the phone mast) and will be available both for liveries and riding school clients. We're very excited about the x-country jumps in particular, as we've been waiting five years to get some x-country jumps!

Stressful seperation!

Hi folks, we're having an exciting time at the farm this morning. Today was the day that we planned to seperate Belinda and Melody as Melody is confident without her mum now, and is very friendly with Aero, the granny mare that we use to keep the youngsters company!
So we went into the field this morning and caught Belinda in - which didn't bother Melody at all. She just stood at the gate with Aero.
Belinda was a totally different case though - she got herself very worked up for some reason - she was really calm the last time she had a foal weaned (Aria). Anyway, we put Belinda up with the school girls who she is used to from being turned out with them before. This didn't work though as Belinda was squealing and trying to kick the geldings next door over the fence. We intervened quickly as this is how she cut her hind leg before, so we decided to put her up to Murtle Den with Cali and Ben, where there were no geldings next door. Belinda was a bit strong and pushy on the way up the track and when we let her loose in the field she decided to chase Cali and kick her. Ben was not amused by his field friend getting kicked so he went after Belinda, who unfortunately decided trying to jump the gate was the best option. Now Belinda was never the best jumper when she was in ridden work, so unsurprisingly she didnt' manage to clear the 5 foot gate. However, she landed on it with her chest so the gate gave way and crumpled underneath her. She then got up, miraculously unhurt and took off past us back down the farm track. We phoned the other staff quickly and got the road gates shut but Belinda was quickly back down at the field gate, speaking to Melody. We were so pleased that she didn't hurt herself during all the excitement, so we've now decided to stable her for the next couple of days and will then try turning her out again. Poor old Belly - if only she would relax a bit and go out to a nice field!

Friday 3 June 2011

We're back blogging

Apologies for the delay! Things have been very busy at ARC, so there is a lot to catch up with! So here goes with all the latest:
Sadly, we had Peggy put down at the end of April - she came in slightly lame from the field and deteriorated rapidly over the next few days till we felt her best and only option was to put her to sleep peacefully on the Saturday night. It was very sad as Peggy had been part of our team for a long time, but at least she had a peaceful dignified end.
We have also taken charge of 2 new ponies:
Caley is a 14.2h.h connemara cross, who has been purchased by the RDA to hopefully work with them. As the RDA only ride three days a week, Caley will also work with us in lessons, which also helps to keep her well schooled for the RDA. Caley arrived on 31st May and she is on one months trial as whilst she is a sweet pony, it takes a very certain type of pony to be good at RDA, so she will be ridden by our staff initially and then used by an able bodied rider in the RDA sessions to see how she behaves. Watch this space for a future report.
The club has also now taken ownership of Boyo, who has been a privately owned pony at Oldfold for over 8 years. Boyo was initially up for sale from his owner Valerie, when Julia finished loaning him, however he came down with a bout of laminitis again (a grass related issue in his case) which made him more difficult to sell. Although we weren't looking for another school pony, we offered to take over ownership of Boyo to make sure he could stay at the farm. So we signed him over on Wednesday and our vets will now continue his laminitis care before he does any work.
So hopefully the new ones will work out well.
We have also been doing a bit of work with Aria, the club 3 year old. She has now worn a roller (used prior to putting a saddle on), has been lunged and has worn her first bridle and had someone lie over her back in her stable. She seemed to take to it all very well so fingers crossed she will continue to be so easy!