Liz Taylor

Back to work

I have just watched the weather...more snow is forecast... Please no more!! SG Enigmatika is currently enjoying her winter break before coming back into work this coming weekend, so snow would not be helpful! I usually stop riding after my last ride of the season (Red Dragon in October) and start again on 1st January. I think its important to give the Endurance horses some time off, we ask quite a lot of them in the summer, so some chill out time with no shoes on and a good length of time to allow them to relax over the winter is important both mentally and physically. She will be brought back into work with lots of long slow work and schooling ready for her first training ride in the middle of February. Horses do tend to keep their fitness very well, but it is still important to bring them back into work slowly to ensure the horse is well prepared you don't pick up any niggling injuries in training.

Its been a rather hectic December, the snow and ice caused absolute havoc, I seemed to spend about 3 weeks solidly mucking out stables/breaking ice on water buckets (both inside and outside the stables!) and ferrying about more hay and straw as we were getting through it at such a rate. A few purchases of large round bales to place in the fields to ensure they always had some forage to nibble on kept them relatively happy despite probably 3 weeks of snow/frost covered grass.

Despite the bad weather all of the horses are holding their condition really well with a combination of Hi-Fi Lite and Alfa-A (plus vitamins & minerals) as well as our home-grown haylage. We have just weaned the foals, and even in this weather they have actually put on weight since leaving their mums - not lost it!

January is always quite an exciting time of year as the Ride Calendar is produced so we can sit down and plan our campaign for the year, SG Enigmatika's aim for this year is to complete 80km rides, so we have a few fittening rides to fit in first to up the distance. I think our first ride is likely to be February - which is fast approaching!

I will let you know how we get on.

Wishing you all lots of success for 2011.

Liz