Tuesday 22 May 2012

The rain has finally stopped!

Yipee! The rain has finally stopped, the sun has come out and the horses have finally gotten their rugs off! Its so nice to get out in the sand paddock and ride out round the fields again.
So, whats new at Oldfold? Well, we have a great hacking track now, which John kindly put up around the farm - it means that we can now ride a big loop round the whole farm through the haylage fields without having to get off and open gates or turn back, so thanks John! The track has a big puddle on it because of all the rain - some of the horses have been very funny and tried to avoid getting their feet wet, but most of the horses love it and go paddling happily.
Henry is now happily in lessons too - he is proving to be a real gentleman and very popular with the members who have been lucky to ride him so far. He will be staying out in the field with Reggie overnight for the foreseeable future, as they are great friends and both a bit too polite and posh to go in with Scrufty and Boyo!
We are also running a "livery" grid lesson on Tuesday 29th May at 6.00p.m. The lesson is limited to liveries on horses over 15.2h.h., but is a great opportunity for riding school members to come along and watch the grid lesson and learn a bit more about distances e.t.c.
We are also running a cross country demo on Saturday 16th June, at 6.30p.m. The idea is that we will show members how to walk a cross country course, how to ride different fences and there will be a variety of standards of guinea pig riding round. It will be a great fun evening, which the members committee are organising and there is a barbeque as well, so hopefully you guys will all be able to attend!
If you would like to come along on the evening, entry is for members only and is free - just add your name to the list in reception.
Thanks

Friday 4 May 2012

New horses settle in

Hi Everyone,
Its been a bit quiet on the Blog front as we've been busy getting the horses out for the summer and getting the new ones into work. So its well overdue for an update!
Firstly, the new horses have settled in well after a slightly longer than anticipated isolation - they ended up in isolation for nearly five weeks! However they're down onto the yard now and happily settled in.
Henry has become very good friends with Reggie - they are both a pair of gentlemans, stay in at nights and go out with each other during the day, so they have been enjoying each others company and feeling very posh seperated away from the rest of the school ones! Henry has been ridden quite a bit by Hannah and did his first lesson (flatwork) last Monday. He will now start to pick up his jumping work a bit more, but has settled in really well and seems to enjoy the environment in the riding school.
KoKo took slightly longer to settle as she is younger and greener, and had become very attached to Jazz after their five weeks together in isolation. She has now been ridden by Sally and Martin, and is going to be a project for Sian to ride for a while as Sian is keen to do a bit more riding and KoKo seems ideal as she has a nice quiet way of going. She can be a bit pushy in her stable, so we are working on her manners a little bit too before she will fully join lessons.
Aria is doing really well and being ridden most days by Martin in walk/trot/canter so she will soon start some pole/jumping work. She is a nice forward going mare to ride, so we are hoping that she will become one that our more advanced riders can enjoy in years to come.
Murphy disappointingly has gone lame again after his 3 months box rest and pen rest, so he is back in annoying everyone with his door kicking! There is no real treatment available for Murphy after rest, so we are hoping that he maybe just overdid it in his pen and will look better after some more box rest. Amazingly, he still hasn't lost any weight, although he is stabled and not getting any access to grass, but fingers crossed he will trim up soon.
Thats all for now!