J P Daker

A good Autumn for Bow House Equestrian

Well we are snowed in at the moment so we have plenty of free time as we were meant to be in Scotland at the Ingliston Show Jumping this weekend!

Any way we have had a good Autumn, we managed to go to several of the bigger shows, Hand, Addington and Rowallen in Scotland, which was a fun trip, 8 hours each way and it was very cold when we got there. Rowallen has a massive indoor arena, warm up area and stabling all under one roof and a fab restaurant! We had mixed results but generally the horses went very well. Alice loved it as when you did a Double clear they played very loud music at the end of your round. Well when Alice got a double clear, the music played full blast, her tail went up over her back and she pranced around! I think she thought she was on Strictly Come Jumping!
Jackie from Kingsbarn Equestrian Centre (near Rowellen) asked if JP would like to go on a clinic with John Leddingham on the day after, so we rang home and said we would be 24 hours late and moved to Kingsbarn. When we got there we found 4 stables, food for us and a bed for Charlie, thank you Jackie! We had a brilliant time and 2 sessions of training as well. In all it was a great trip to Scotland.

Rubis is getting back to form, winning a few classes and jumping well in the 1.40's. Arti, Oso and Rosie have all moved up a level and next week we go to the Hartpury Spectacular!
The younger horses have all had a holiday and are now all back in work, so they will be ready for a show soon. Secret has had a very good year and has hardly had a pole down. At one show when JP had both Arti and Secret in the jump off with only a couple of horses between them, JP had to quickly jump off Arti and straight onto Secret, canter over the practise fence and straight into the arena. JP always checks his girth first but the bell went as he went into the arena so he jumped fence 1 and 2 no problem but over fence 3 JP and the saddle went one way, whilst Secret went the other. Well Secret was very upset as she loves to have a rosette! I'm not sure but think that I may have been in charge of the girth....opps!
Casino did around 8 shows in the summer getting some double clears at newcomers. The Dengie team were very busy at the Chester Show with the showstand, but they had time to come over and watch JP and Casino to cheer them on. Casino has now had a holiday but is thrilled to be back in work and is just waiting for shoes and then its off to shows again. He loves it, when the bell rings he squeals and sets off to the first fence he sees!
Sunny will start in the new year, he will be the 4th member of the Old Rosie family we will have jumping, and if he is as good as Rosie, Secret and Casino we should have a good rosette collection next year.

Rosalind and Little Rupert, at 30 years and 30 years old plus respectively, are still going strong but now have even less teeth, so they live on a diet of Dengie Alfa-Beet made into a soup. The jumping horses have been fed Dengie Compliment all year and have done very well with it. It is easy to feed so you don't need to use much and they have all had good energy levels, so we plan to continue with it next year.

I hope you all have a great Christmas and a fun new year and all the best for 2011 for you and your horse!

Caroline