A baby horse becomes a grown up horse edition 2

So I went in to unload her at Ascott under Wychwood. I led her down the ramp like any other time. The next thing I knew, I was on my arse and she was grazing.

The ramp had literally completely severed itself from my lorry. We called our recovery then got on with our day.

I warmed her up for a loooooooong time but never really managed to get her relaxed. She did a decent but tense test for 35. We managed to skip a long queue for SJ (and xc) due to needing to be finished in time for the recovery people, and picked up 8 faults in the SJ. One down and a stop.

Unfortunately a while back, she put her back out twice in quick succession which I realised when she point blank refused to jump. Both times she was fixed right away by my wonderful sponsor, Ruth Mawer from Equigility, but for a while it left a mark and she would throw the odd stop in.

Then cross country time....She bounced down to the warm up (which alarmed me slightly as I had my second fall off her the week previous - a loose pony galloping in a field fried her brain and she exploded for the first time. I always knew she had it in her. I always knew I didn't want to experience it. I was right. I don't know if we went left, right, forwards, back, up, down. All I knew was I had no hope of staying on and started to bail. Unfortunately I bailed as she threw a huge buck so I ended up on my back....watching her galloping home. She was intelligent enough to head home. The pony she was with did not. We ended up getting my car stuck in the woods searching for him. But that's another story...pony ended up home safe and sound)

Anyway, we skipped the queue again (yay) and set off.

I've never had a car posh enough to put it on autopilot. But apparently now I have a horse with that mode. She cruised round. I didn't do a thing. I pointed, kept my leg there, she looked for the flags, maintained a rhythm even through the woods and just was insanely perfect. Never ridden a round like it xc, even on my wonderful Squirrel. I kept my leg on for the water but it wasn't a problem. What a wonderful horse

 

We were rescued and all was well.

 

That summer we also did a little showing and dressage show.  We were late, I couldn't warm up for my dressage and she surpassed herself by performing a lovely relaxed test to break the 70% barrier for the first time and to finish second.

 

The showing went very well until it came to her 'gallop'. I'd never asked her to do it before but apparently this is Very Exciting and we went bronk bronk bronk. Hmm. Yeah.

 

We were entered for two more unaffiliated events. Unfortunately in the week leading to the first of those she felt odd. I'm very tuned in to how this horse feels and she wasn't herself. I had Ruth out who suspected she'd done a slight tear in her shoulder muscle which the vet later confirmed. She was prescribed 2 weeks off.

 

I decided to end her season there and give her 6 weeks. She's too good, too special to risk bringing back into work too soon and causing damage to herself.

 

The time off did her the world of good. She FINALLY FINALLY filled out and now resembles a horse, not a 2 year old.

 

To be continued....