Out for a hack on Bones
This last week has been hectic with everyone getting things ready for Phillip and Jennie to go away to the CCI event at New Jersey called Jersey Fresh. The event is held at the horse park in New Jersey, which is really well set up. It was an international event with high numbers of entries: 40 in the CCI3*, 40 in the CIC3* and about 30 in the 2*.
Both Lizzie (Lizzie Hoy from Nyngan NSW) and I went and helped out on Saturday with the cross country which was good fun apart from the fact it was wet and unfortunately Phillip didn’t have such a successful day as he fell off two of his three rides. Two of those were catch rides for Boyd Martin who had broken his ankle the previous week. Boyd has a barn next door to Phillip.
For those of you wondering what our day consists of – it goes something like this …
Everyday work at the barn includes getting there at 7:20am and starting or helping muck out stalls, sweep aisle ways and start to get horses tacked up for Jennie and Phillip. There are eight girls who work there not including Philip and Jennie. Not all of the girls ride but most of the ones that do, get at least one ride a day. I usually get about one ride a day, which keeps me busy during the day. I’ve ridden all the different levels of horses ranging from some being preliminary level and some being as high as three star level. The three star horses are especially fun to ride because they know what they are doing and are so well trained.
There is always plenty of feeding to do
In the barn they have four different times for feeding. They are 6am, 11am, 2pm and 4pm. The 6am and 2pm feeds are for the horses that go into paddocks at night and the 11am and 4pm feeds are for those that stay in stalls at night. Some horses are on stall rest and they have to be hand grazed everyday.
Well that’s all for now – catch up again next week
Emma
