August always seems to be a bit of a blur – we are heading towards the busy months of the competition season as well as having the breeding season just around the corner.
The last few months have gone well with our team of horses. My young mare Kinnordy Gwendolyn did well at Melbourne 3DE finishing 4th in the large CCI* class and the plan for her is to do a few Two Star starts by the end of the year. She has had a few showjumping outings recently jumping well in the Futurity classes and finished 4th in the 1.30m class at Gatton World Cup Show. This is a great event and has classes ranging from 80cm to World Cup so we had a full truck with 10 horses competing.
My young horses also jumped well at this show with Jaybee Vigilante picking up 1st in the 4yo class and APH Charlie Brown =1st in the Young Horse Class. Shane had a great weekend with his horses and picked up 8th place in the World Cup with his mare Fairbanks Lulu. He also picked up a place in the Future Stars and 1.30m class on his younger horse Idol D which is impressive seeing as he has only been under saddle for 18 months (he was broken in as a 5 yo).
After Melbourne I had a couple of weekends at home as the beginning of the year saw me away competing and teaching for 12 weekends in a row. Due to our stable competing in Eventing, Showjumping and Dressage this leaves very few weekends free each year but in the past few months Shane has been busy building our next semi-trailer.
This is the fourth truck he has built and we hope to have most of it up and running by the time we head to Melbourne. I can’t take any credit for this project but help where I can. This included laying the rubber down for the floor – I am no handy man so have had to get used to using drills, angle grinders and sickaflex which I seem to manage to get everywhere! We have been without a truck for a while now so it will be a big help to have this on the road. I have my Heavy Rigid licence but have to get my Heavy Combination licence to be able to drive the semi – I will be going for this test in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed I pass!
Building the truck and trying on new make-up .................!!
At the beginning of September we head off to Victoria to compete for three weeks at Boneo Park, the Aussie Showjumping Championships and then Melbourne Royal. It is great to go and jump over some more difficult tracks and there is so much that can be learnt by watching other good riders. We do have some really good riders in Australia and I don’t think it will be long before more Aussie riders are holding their own overseas. The quality in our Aussie bred jumping horses has increased exponentially over the last 10 years – It would be nice to think the showjumping riders could have access to the shows and grounds in Australia they needed to prepare for a WEG or Olympics the way that the eventing riders can.
Aside from my own competing I have been busy helping my students with their riding and was proud to watch Paris Auer win the CCI*Junior class at Melbourne 3DE and our working pupil Courtney Stubberfield place 12th in the open CCI*. Another student Jedd Johnstone who has not been eventing for long won the Pre-Novice class at Interschool States and has qualified for Nationals.
Our first foal is due in a few weeks so the breeding madness will begin when I get back from Melbourne. Breeding season is great fun and a little crazy – lots of long hours, not much sleep and our days are not always easy to plan out with mares arriving and semen needing to be collected at the last minute. The best part is seeing the next crop of foals hit the ground – it is always interesting to see them grow into competition horses and find out which ones are our next stars – let the fun begin!
