Liz Taylor

A great start to the season

Last time I wrote my blog I was very frustrated at not having sat on a horse for what seemed like months due to the snow and ice that had turned our normally wet miserable winter into something of a winter wonderland. However, when the snow (finally!) receded we managed to commence wok as usual, and with these lighter nights we have now started full work again, and I am very very much looking forward to a busy season.

SG Enigmatika is horse number 1 this year, broken last year she was given time at home schooling and learning about the world before starting to compete this year. Our schooling has worked fantastically, and she had her first ‘competition’ at Huntley last weekend – a ‘fun’ dressage competition organised by our local endurance group (‘fun’ enabling us to compete in our endurance tack and clothing...so not your average dressage class with an array of colours and weird and wonderful tack on display!).

Ennie has a lovely attitude to life, and doesn’t seem at all bothered by going out to difference places, she warmed up beautifully before the competition (despite an extremely strong wind!), being very responsive, soft and sensible. However, just as the bell rung for us to start our test in the indoor school, there was a huge gust of wind, lots of banging and noise so pony went from being nice, soft and relaxed to being about half the length, tense and worried – and unfortunately the 4 minute test wasn’t long enough for her to ‘get her head in gear again’, although she was improving by the end. Needless to say we didn’t score very highly on the test (although she still came around mid field in the scores). However we got some lovely and helpful comments from the judge commenting that she had seen ‘glimpses of super trot work’ and that ‘when she became more confident she will produce some super work’. I took her back into the warm up arena afterwards to get her working properly again and we ended up with a nice relaxed, soft supple horse again... if only I could have had another go!!

We are planning on taking her to some more dressage tests as it gives us an aim in our schooling sessions and means I have to think about the moves I am schooling and my riding position etc. This will help with her endurance career as she will be balanced and (hopefully!) responsive. The more balanced and controlled your endurance horse is, the better it will manage to cope with the ground conditions, if you can control your horses legs, this in turn should lead to faster speeds, and less injuries...and if your horse is responsive you will both enjoy the ride far more, and you won’t be half as tired at the end of the ride as you would if your were fighting with your horse the whole way round.

We are off to do her first Endurance Ride at the end of April, in the Forest of Dean. To get her fit enough for this we are doing a combination of hacking out in the woods 3 times a week, with increasing amounts of trot and canter work (I will try to remember to take my GPS with us and I’ll measure our training routes)and twice a week schooling sessions (1 x 1hr, 1x 40mins). Lunging for 20mins may replace one piece of work if I am tight for time.

I also have a training day at my yard organised by my local Endurance group for riders new to Endurance, this is taking place at the end of March, and will cover everything from how fit does your horse need to be, to how to enter your first ride, any kit you need and what to expect when you get there and how to take your horses heart rates etc, and what these heart rates actually mean. We held one last year, it was really well supported and I found it lovely to then see the people who attended out on the circuit that year – a couple of which even received rosettes/awards at the end of the year awards, which was really great to see.

Finally, we still have our fingers tightly crossed that everything is well with Falaina and Karaanza’s foals. Both are due to foal in June, so I am quite nervous but quite excited too... fingers crossed that both will produce strong, healthy foals which will be my next 100mile horses!

I’ll let you know how Enigmatika gets on in her first endurance ride in my next blog!

Liz