Tanya Buckingham

Preparation for Aske Horse Trials

Last weekends event at Hutton in the Forest was sadly cancelled due to too much rain! I therefore decided that I should enter the Zetland Pony Club One Day event at Northallerton as I felt Sonyk could do with a run before Aske Hall this weekend coming!

The ODE was run over the affiliated PN course from the spring so it was a perfect prep run! As I was going anyway I decided to take Buck to do the first class and Bob to do the open along with Sonyk! Buck was on first thing in the morning and managed to do canter on both reins in his test which was a great achievement for him, and then went on to jump a double clear and finished 8th! Sonyk and Bob both did lovely tests and both went double clear to finish 1st and 2nd and Bob won the prize for the best dressage! This was the first event Bob has done in over a year so I think I will take him BE again next year and see if he has finally got over his naughtiness!

Kate from Sue Carson Saddles came on Monday to try a few saddles on Bob, I have ordered a new dressage saddle but we had to play around with different sizes to see what fitted me (his measurements have already been sorted!) and in the end a 16 and a half inch was deemed perfect...I feel a life of not eating rubbish may be the way forward now so that I can still fit into the saddle when it arrives!!

Tuesday was a trip back to Northallerton with Sonyk and Sparkle this time for Susie Gibson lessons! Once again both boys were brilliant and we worked on getting the canter more forward into the fences!

Today I have been for a lesson at Richmond with Paul Hayler- It was the first time I have had a dressage lesson with him, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! We worked on getting Sparkle more engaged and in front of the leg, and by the end of the lesson he felt very grown up!

With the temperatures dropping slightly all the boys have now got their winter rugs on and are still getting all their Dengie goodies in their feed buckets! They are also getting haylage out in the fields now as the quality of the grass isn't as good this time of year!

This weekend Sparkle and Sonyk are competing at Aske...hopefully the rain will stay away!

Tanya