What a roller coaster couple of weeks it’s been! It honestly feels like a lifetime ago that I moved house, the horses, pooch and I have settled in really well though, and our only remaining challenge is finding good quality oaten round bales or big squares. My fussy furkids don’t like grass hay, and I don’t want them losing weight with the lack of grass here.
My first project when I shifted in here was creating a workable tack room for myself! There is a communal tack room here, but with two horses of my own and all their gear, along with an Equissage, I really wanted to find somewhere secure for it all. I discovered there was an old tack room that had been locked for about four years and no one had been in there since the place had been hit by a big flood back in 2008 ... So I managed to track down the key and found amazing array of junk inside.
The before photos
The floor looked like just a dirt floor (there were in fact bricks under there!)
There was a menagerie of spiders, frogs and large rodents disappointed to have their homes invaded
Plenty of work to do ...
The after photos
After many hours of scrubbing, high pressure hosing, binning and sweeping, I unearthed quite a useable space!
This is the ‘finished product’ and I now love having my own nice neat and tidy space to store all my gear
The other big change that has happened for me lately is my awesome new groom, to go along with my awesome new tack room! Annelise is a client of mine who is looking to gain more experience and is tacking my horses up for me four mornings a week so I can keep on top of riding and my business, which is growing every week! It’s been amazing to have someone to help me out in the mornings so I can focus on the riding and she seems to be making the transition from her quiet dressage horse to my sometimes-a-bit-fresh eventers without too much trouble!
So as always with horses, there needs to be a plan A through Z when it comes to the possibilities of what the future might hold, and it seems we’re having one of those occasions right now. About a week before our first event for the season, Muz went from being completely sound one day, to being completely lame the next. The way he was hopping around I concluded this must have been an abscess so I poulticed him for a few days and was relieved when we found gunk in his dressing one morning and he was looking much sounder. After riding him the following day he went very lame again despite his abscess drying out nicely. When the vet came out we discovered that he was flexing up positively (not good news) on his near side fetlock and pastern and decided we needed to x-ray. The x-rays have shown he’s obviously managed to aggravate his joint in the paddock, either by twisting or giving himself a decent whack, which is causing the soreness. It looks like Muz just wasn’t ready for his Christmas break to end! He’s looking better and better all the time in the paddock, but we’ve decided to work him back in very slowly to avoid aggravating him again considering how hard the ground is right now, which has put a great big question mark over Melbourne 3DE for Muz. Will keep you posted on how he goes! Right now I am certainly thanking my lucky stars that I’ve got two horses to ride otherwise the next few weeks of my life would be might boring!
Archie on the other hand is going brilliantly and has obviously benefited massively from his big holiday over summer. He’s going to be 7 years old next week, and he finally is starting to figure out how to balance himself, push from behind and carry his own head around all at once - so much body to coordinate! It is certainly a great feeling to have been working with such a tricky horse for so long and to now start seeing the fruits of our labour! He went to the South West Top Horse Horse Trials recently at Camperdown where I ran him in a preliminary class because he’d only really been back in work for four weeks and we hadn’t done a huge amount of fitness work. However he absolutely ate the course up and left me wishing he’d been doing the pre novice after all.
Archie on course at the Top Horse South West Horse Trials
Probably our biggest learning for the weekend to realise was just how far he has in fact come on the flat! He felt quite tense and against me when we were out at the event and the work I was able to get there didn’t feel nearly as good as the work he now produces at home. It still scored a 64%, though I think if that work was a 64% he must be giving me more like 80% work at home! So I’m now going through the process of identifying exactly what changes when he goes out and how I need to ride him better to get the better quality work. I’m looking forward to some dressage lessons in the coming weeks with my coach Megan Jones and I’m certainly looking forward to the day he gives me the kind of work he gives me at home when he’s out and about!
I’m also looking forward to cross country schooling and going to jump some rounds at Shepparton show jumping shortly and then our next event will be Horse Trials where Archie is doing the Pre Novice. I’ve withdrawn Muz from Tonimbuk to take the pressure off and hopefully he will be well and truly on the mend in the near future.
Good luck to everyone competing in the next month, till next time.
Best Riding,
Nicole
