Paddy Muir

New Addition to our Team

We have had quite a busy couple of months.

We have a new addition to the team a lovely chestnut mare ‘Olania’. She is an eight year old Show Jumper who belonged to a friend. She is very brave, with an amazing jump and it has been good for me to ride something so talented. Olania completed her first Pre Novice after a week of being here and was a joy to ride.

Stanley Browns performances in the Show Jumping arenas at competitions have been dismal, whereas at home he was jumping fairly well. I think we may have got to the bottom of that. Our physio found a problem in his neck which I think was affecting him when he became nervous in the ring – which he tends to do - and I had to use more hand to balance him which caused him to hollow and became impossible to ride to a fence on an even stride. I gave him a couple of easy weeks, put him on a low energy diet replacing his oats with Dengie Fibremix and letting him chill out. Since his treatment I have upped his feed back to oats, Alfa A and Alfa-Beet and put him into full work again. I have concentrated on working at home with more contact as I would ride him in the ring. He will do the OI at Allerton next.

We have been having regular lessons with Robert Shields, a show jumping trainer from Durham, he has pretty much transformed the way we all sit and come to a fence and the horses have improved dramatically.

Robert works on encouraging the riders to sit up taller into the fences, ride to a deeper spot, and ride very straight and square into and after the fences.

The most dramatic result has been on Buzz – my naughty, spooky little grey who had the kissing spine problem. Buzz needs calm, quiet even riding every day – he can drive you crazy shying, spooking, and spinning – but if you stay calm you can get through in the end. He has masses of scope and is a joy to ride when calm and I find a low energy diet of Hi Fi/ Alfa-Beet and Fibremix keep him quiet, almost lazy which is great. Buzz competes in his first Novice next week.

Paddy

28th September