Africa was a dream; all hot sunshine, incredible scenery and amazing animals; even wild horses in the desert! Back now to reality, replace the hot sunshine with cold rain and wind and a sea of mud and the beginning of, possibly, a long winter.
It is, however, nice to get back to the horses although the first week or so was spent in great activity trying to sort out the fields and stables. You know the sort of thing, fencing, strimming and hours and hours of trying to remove the leaves from the school.
Whilst I was away little Chiara had another touch of colic so she is back on Feedmark's BioPro and seems to be absolutely fine now. I have just brought her and Wizard back into work which will comprise walking only for the next couple of weeks but the plan is to take them both to the annual Christmas fun ride next month although we will only be able to go very slowly.
Now that I have started riding again after nearly two months off, I realise that I have put on a few pounds and am not riding fit at all. I have decided to do something about this and in this respect yesterday I went to have a session on a riding simulator. This is SIM and he is quite unique.
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You have to wear a jacket with horizontal and vertical lines on it to assess straightness. Actually mounting SIM was the hardest part as he is so wobbly. Once aboard, SIM reacts to your every move. In order to start the motion you have to move your body as you would on a real horse. It was an invaluable lesson and reinforced my prior knowledge of my defects, giving me things to work on to ensure that I will be as straight and balanced as I can be once I’m back on a horse.
As the days are now so short and usually pretty gloomy, I am trying to be time-efficient by riding and leading the horses. I am at present walking Chiara and Wizard for about 45 minutes a day gradually building up the time and varying the terrain as early conditioning for future competitions. Riding Wizard and leading Chiara works quite well as they are both forward going and Chi is remarkably well behaved on a leading rope. Yesterday, however, I made the mistake of riding Chi and attempting to lead Wizard. It was awful, Wizard (who is 24) was an absolute loon; the word walk had left his dictionary and had been replaced by piaffe! Chiara couldn’t cope with the competition and suddenly I had two ridiculously cavorting equines moving down the lane. I stuck with it and it didn’t get any better, there won’t be another time!
Meanwhile Fantom and Dilmun are still on holiday and will stay that way until January. They are extremely fat, hairy and muddy and Fantom, in particular, is starting to demonstrate his joie de vivre in the form of snorting and bucking when his electric fence is moved to reveal yet more grass.
I’ve just heard the outcome of the new FEI endurance rules and how they will affect both our little team and endurance riders in general. There are some changes to weights, qualifications and rest periods, however no fundamental changes. If we want to aspire for Championship selection, however, we will now be required to do two 3* competitions. We have one planned for next year and, if that goes well we will then have to plan another one in!