Lodestar Eventing

Mabe

Rain stopped the planned group hack this morning so Mabel had to put up with schooling.

Tonight I discovered that you can showjump to System Of A Down. Wouldn’t personally want to try dressage, but the track Suggestions perfectly suited Monster’s mood. The Armenian folk undertones of the tune suited her approach to the jumps.

Whatever, Monster is in a much better mood tonight after 30 minutes letting off steam.

Danger panda

I’ve been using the Endomondo app on my iPhone to log the distance of our usual hacking routes. One of the other things it tells me is the speed we get up to. Which means I could now, if I wanted too, tell you Mabels top speed. Or at least the canter speed she’s comfortable at on a hack. Rather surprisingly it is not as fast as Monster likes to go, so I have to hold Monster back. Still, this is better than teaching Mabel to rush off rather than use her power. I’m sure that the hacks and the chance to stretch her legs and horizons does her good rather than being permanently restricted to arenas where a corner is always coming up. It’s not doing Monster bad either who went copied Mabel and went into into extended trot the other day. Rather odd.

This mornings hack was little on the cold side, and rather treacherous underfoot. Even some of the off-road sections were slippery. Still, it’s better than the conditions our friends back at the Vale of Lune have been facing. They’ve done well to get as many meets in as they have so far this season, but last Wednesday they were defeated by the wind and rain. I’m looking forward to seeing them all at the Hunt Ball.

Sloes. Meet gin.

Mabel sliced the inside of her leg a few weeks back, probably in an incident involving Monster, so has just had three weeks off work. She’s been fit to go out hacking and it has been nice on a Saturday or Sunday morning to head out for a few miles. We’ve been getting through the sloe gin on these hacks, but at least we’ve discovered some more.

Actual dressage competition is not to the fore during winter. However now is the time for getting in some proper training and groundwork. Up north that meant lessons with the excellent Sue Pimbley. Mabels allround education would also benefit from a few jumping lessons from Peter Pimbley. Down south, when you know no-one, finding a new trainer can be pot-luck. Fortunately Kirsty has landed on her feet and her and Mabel are following Inger Bryant around the area to her riding clinics. While it may not be so convenient as lessons at a regular time and place it at least is teaching Mabel that she needs to travel to different places and just work.

It also means that we are learning our way to all the local venues without the stress of needing to get there suffering competition nerves. On the downside not many of them are running their catering for clinics. THis just means I’ll have to finish rating the tea and bacon facilities next year. So far Aston-Le-Walls sausage sandwich is the best out there, but Patchetts plated breakfast may just clinch it.

The little minx!

Bad girl