Well I just read through my last blog to give me some direction on where to start this month…to realise that it had been longer than just one month since I have last written! How time flies. It seems that I left everyone with ‘I’m approaching Gidgegannup CNC’. Gidgegannup has long since passed, as has a few other events too. Will start from the bottom…
At Gidgegannup CNC it was just ‘me and my girl’ all weekend - myself and my lovely mare Daisy. Daisy has being going more under the name ‘mare’ or more recently ‘Jaws’ when she decides to bare her big ugly teeth at mum in particular. She is a funny little mare, and has developed a real dislike towards mum. Entertaining on my part, not so much on mums part! So Gidgegannup was a fairly relaxing event with just the one horse to ride, she was in the 1* class and finished mid field.
Trumpet was at this stage, back into work and attended a Wayne Roycroft squad clinic, as well as some jumping lessons with Jamie Coman. Unfortunately he then had to have more time off – more than we had hoped! Trumpet is a bit of a renowned ‘paddock galloper’ and seems to pick random times of random days to gallop flat-tack around his paddock, displaying some lovely actions of bucks and jumps. Actually when watching him you would think he would have a better back-end over a fence! So Trump earned some time off after injuring himself with a nasty over-reach. Unfortunately this meant that he missed Perth’s biggest event of the year, the Wooroloo 3DE. So again, Wooroloo was just myself and the mare, where she competed in her first 3DE, in the CCI*. The event was really well run, the course designed by Wayne Copping was just amazing. I was quite jealous I didn’t have a higher entry! The water jump had been totally re-done and there were new fences over all grades. Such a super effort by everyone involved. Daisy produced quite a good dressage test to be lying 7th but unfortunately had a green 20 penalties cross country! I think she was just a bit over-whelmed by a big combination. I have to remember she’s only young and this year with me has gone from Introductory 1 – 1* so she’s doing an incredible job! We finished with a beautiful clear show jumping round, so there were a lot of positives to take away.
'Early Days' in the CCI 1* at Perth's three day event
The Monday after Wooroloo I forced myself into the dentist to have my wisdom teeth out (in the chair!) It probably wasn’t as bad as what I first thought, I survived just fine, but I won’t be racing back to the dentist any time soon. This meant a few days off riding and teaching for me. I craved a steak the day afterwards, which was horrible.
The following weekend I began to ride a horse that my parents own – Here Comes Murphy. Murph has been campaigning with Deon Stokes for the past year, the plan is that I do a few runs on him and he then can go onto the market. Murph has had a bit of a break this year and not been out since about May so I’m sure he was eager to get back into it. That he did with a Jamie Coman clinic, he also saw Wayne Roycroft for a clinic, as well as Stuart Tinney – all in about 2 weeks! So it definitely gave me enough time to get used to him and form some sort of partnership before taking him to Alcoa Fairbridge CNC on the 15th/16th September.
'Early Days' showing off her backend - and me showing off my beautiful Spooks Riding gear at the Perth three day event!
Here I had him entered in the pre novice. My only entry as the mare has had a well deserved break after her 3DE efforts. His dressage was great considering he hasn’t had a proper outing for so long, 57 penalties. We show-jumped clear the next day and cross country was clear aswell, I just went a little too fast (oops!) for 3.2 time. A successful run and I really enjoyed the ride. Unfortunately we just missed out on the placings but hopefully we can test the waters a little more in a few weeks where he will have a 1* run at Dryandra CNC.
Dryandra will be a weekend that is a little more exciting for me- I have 3 horses entered. Trumpet is now back in work (again) and has some show-jumping to do this weekend at WASJA where he will run in the 1.15m and the Young Rider. Murphy is also coming along for the ride to do the 1.05m and the 1.15m. Daisy is also back in work, she will run at Dryandra just in the Pre Novice for a nice confident run. Trumpet is entered in the 3* so assuming his fitness keeps feeling promising, he will run there too.
I have recently added two more horses to my team, first is ESB Irish Teacher who is an unbroken Irish Sport Horse bought from the ESB stud in Victoria. ‘Levvie’ as he is now affectionately known as, is quite a cute boy and has just left our property to be broken in. I am looking forward to hopefully getting him out and about a bit next season. Then we have ‘Milly’ young TB grey mare by State City, Milly was purchased semi-locally because I really couldn’t go past how fancy she is. She can move and she can jump so I am quite excited about what the future holds for Milly.
Our new roundyard that has recently been built on the property - very exciting
Today actually we also took my broodmare into our vets – Oakford Equine Hospital where she visited Michael and got assessed to start trying to put her in foal. I have finally chosen the stallion I am hoping to use, also something that excites me a lot but hopefully in my next blog I can fill you all in on how well she fell in foal! (Wishful thinking…) ‘Aca’ has some promising lines for a TB so we can’t wait to see what she can produce.
So reading back on all of this it seems as though I’ve actually been quite busy! Things have been going great, the horses are all on track now and I’m looking forward to the next few months in preparation to my final goal –the Australian International Three Day Event!
Til then…
Makayla
Photos thanks to Maddy Brights
