Oh my goodness, where has the time gone? My blog update is long overdue I'm afraid so apologies for that. Slapped wrists for me and time to play catch up… Since my last instalment life has been as crazily busy as ever. I've been on a fun ride with the South Warwickshire Riding Club where Wiz and I acted as ride leaders navigating and dealing with any difficult gates we came across. We had a lovely ride across the stunning Warwickshire countryside and the group of six stayed in control most of the time!
With the White Horse Trec Group we had a lesson with Tracey Dillon on her fantastic arena cross country facility - basically an outdoor school with a couple of ditches, a bank and a water obstacle. We had a very productive time making use of all the toys on offer, although use of the water had to wait until the ice had melted! The main learning point was that I need to kick more, not a new concept but obviously one that I must think about a bit more often.
The indoor TREC competition that I was helping to organise was unfortunately postponed due to the second wave of wintery weather. I had my first lie in of the year that morning as I couldn't move from my bed until all 50 odd competitors had been contacted – my thumb felt pretty tired after all that texting! We have managed to reschedule to a date in a couple of weeks so we're really hoping we manage to run this time.
In an effort to up Wizzy's fitness levels ready for the rapidly approaching outdoor TREC season we've had two weekends where we've gone hunting with the Grafton on the Saturday and then team chasing on the Sunday. Both days of hunting have been a great success with Wiz jumping everything I put him at and the Grafton field being very welcoming. I just need to remember my hip flask next time! Team chasing has also been great fun with the team going clear twice. We've been less successful in getting close to the optimum time of the Novice classes though; at the Berks and Bucks we were a minute slow and at the Heythrop we were 30 seconds fast! We think we would have been quite close to the time at the Heythrop but unfortunately the early morning frost meant they had to adjust the time for safety reasons, whereas when we ran at close to midday all the frost had gone and we had fun without having to hang around. The horses certainly relished the three horse race to the finish line!
Outings aside I'm thrilled with the way Wiz is going at the moment. Whilst schooling I've been working on the basics such as his transitions, bend and responsiveness to the leg. I feel sorry for the poor chap trying to work out what I'm asking as I've never really learnt the finer points of schooling; we seem to muddle through together quite happily though and my spurs certainly make a couple of points clear to him!
I'm also working on improving his confidence when jumping hence the latest flurry of outings. He's really enjoying this work; he's always loved team chasing and will follow another horse over anything I'm brave enough to attempt, but now he's feeling a lot happier show jumping solo as well. The next step is to transfer this confidence to cross country whilst attempting not to get too carried away with what I put him at – always a major failing of mine.