The time has come for Monster to repay her dues. I remember when she was the newbie to the mean streets, being shepherded round by the Naughty Pony. She soon went on to solo outings, and apart from a few tantrums on the Ribble restraining wall brought on by the sight of bad golfing slacks – and frankly who can blame anyone for that – she has turned into a bombproof little mare. She has literally ridden and jumped alongside the M6 on Boxing Day meets.

The Naughty Pony is no more. So it is now up to Monster to shepherd the rookie, Mabe. Or that’s the idea. Stroppy mare has other ideas.

What’s the secret of comedy? Timing*.

Lull rider into a false sense of security by mooching along, head in the air, wandering vaguely in whatever direction your head is pointing, looking in awe and wonder at the countryside. Cars, walkers in dodgy short/boot combinations, cattle byres, complete with sprightly bullocks appearing out of nowhere, all taken in her stride.

But lo! What is this beastly piece of wriggly tin roof fly tipped down a narrow and muddy bridleway. This is the perfect point to start napping. Back into Mabe who thinks that if Monster is scared then it must be bad. This is no time for pissing about, especially when the stick you didn’t bring because you never need it is back in the trailer.

Cue muddy boots and jeans for the sake of 100 yards of snorting and stroppy behaviour. Once back on dry land she’s as good as gold again, and no-doubt pleased with herself for causing maximum inconvenience.

Witch.

* there are those who suggest “schadenfreude”. They may have a point.

I recently had a day of mountain bike skills training with Ed Oxley of Great Rock.

[Image copyright and courtesy Ed Oxley]

A lot of what I had to learn was about fore/aft balance and how, for too long I’ve been leaning too far off the back of the bike. I had to learn to have my weight forward, and shift it back at the right point.

Sound familiar?

It should do.

The impact on my horse-riding has been immediately noticeable.

Four Legs

[Image copyright and courtesy Hooves-R-Us]

No longer worried about my position I’m now able to better judge if Monster will be overfaced, and I’m not unbalancing her. This season she is really coming on.

I’d arranged to be there at midday, so planned to leave at about 11 so we could fill up with diesel and pick up some cash on the way. Why is it that with horses, things never go to plan? Nick and I were suited and booted and at the stables at 10.45 ready to start the lorry and load up. Unfortunately Nick has the same ‘too tight boots’ issue that I’ve been having. Once he’d actually been sick with the pain he decided to go home and get changed. A change to thinner breeches solved the problem and he swaggered back into the barn with his usual cry of ‘relax girls, he’s married!’. He think’s he’s Mr Darcy… no amount of sarcastic comments from those of us who are supposed to fancy him will persuade him otherwise!

It was then we discovered that we had left Puk’s reins at home, so Nick did another U-turn to pick them up, by which time we were running about 20 mins late. Finally we were ready to go and we drove down the road with the intention of getting cash to pay the hire fees from the ATM at the end of the road. But disaster, it was ‘out of service’! We decided to carry on to the local supermarket on our way and get cash there, but that one had no cash left in it! A quick call to Crow Wood confirmed that they would accept a cheque, but that meant turning for home to pick up the cheque book. We were finally on our way an hour late.

We arrived at Crow Wood with no further mishaps and parked up. We’ve got tacking up and getting ready at these venues down to a fine art, so were soon aboard and heading to the gallops. Jad always feels a bit over-excited to start with, and he hates the thought of losing his best mate Puk, so we have to work it so Jad is always just slightly in front. This can give Nick a few problems with holding Puk up. Half way round the gallops there are some walls and steeplechase fences. Jad being a brave soul feels that these are quite a lot more scary than the traffic thundering past on the M65 and would sooner veer towards an 18 tonne truck than get too close to the fences. This of course meant that he veered sideways and straight into the line that Nick and Puk were taking. He’s a complete dimwit sometimes.

A couple of laps of the gallops later, we headed to the xc fences with the super fit Puk still pulling and snorting. Jad gave the first fence (2′high) a suspicious look and wouldn’t entertain going near it. A cunning use of psychology sorted that out. If ever Jad won’t jump something we position Puk just the other side… he soon sails over it then in case he gets left behind. I wish we could do that in competition! With neither of us having even jumped a pole for nearly 5 months, we were a bit untidy over all the early fences. We didn’t really enjoy it until we got to the water fence and we all spent ages splashing through it. Water is Puk’s favourite because it makes a good noise and you can get really messy.

After that Jad got his rhythm and we were soon suffering from the same old problem… Jad galloping into his fences with ears glued forwards and launching into space over them, while I spend the bits between the fences desperately trying to get some speed off him. Brakes have never been our strong point. These days I find the best tactic is just to take as much speed off as I can until a dozen strides away, at which point I just show him which fence, let him sort it out and pray that we make it. Okay, so it’s not technical, but it’s only my job to get us to the fences, it’s Jad’s job to jump them when we get there.

Slightly breathless (me and Nick) and snorting (Jad and Puk) we cleared the final fence… Nick – “My god, we cleared that without reins!”… and walked back to the wagon. A quick hose-down for the horses (Puk’s favourite bit) and we were on our way home with tales of our bravery.

I’m still not ready for the first event and it’s less than a week away!

This winter I’ve been trying to improve my dressage at home, with a few lessons thrown in for good measure. I have a brilliant instructor in the form of Sue Pimbley. She definitely gets the best out of us and I look forward to our sessions. I started going to Sue because I struggle to complete xc courses. Since going, my interest in the dressage has rapidly increased and I’ve gone from not being able to ride a decent 20m circle to attempting the first basic steps towards half-pass! We’re a long way off mastering it yet, but we’re slowly and steadily getting there. Jad’s neck and top-line have improved no end in the mean time, and a nice walk to canter transition is more the norm than the exception these days.

My aims this year are to concentrate a lot more on dressage and try and get some points affiliated. I hope to do half a dozen ODEs as well, but we’re going to go back to Intro level so Jad can start enjoying himself more. He loves events, but scares himself once the fences start getting too technical and I’d far sooner that he had fun than push him into a level of competition that worries him.