relaxing hack out over farm

Last weekend was our Taranaki aniversay weekend so my friends all had a long weekend which means more riding!! great... I had a lesson on friday with jutta and Autumn went really well but it was just so hot so made the lesson even harder than it was, Jutta worked my butt off that day but autumn has improved lots and I am sure so has my riding.
On sunday I went to the taranaki masters equestrian comp, it was such a nice relaxing day no pressure was a great training day and I got the chance to step up a grade and practise a higher level of test to see how Autumn would handle it and she went pretty well, since it wasn't a grading day I thought I may as well give it a go...I got a silver medal for my age group, 35-49yrs...have to say it sure makes you feel a bit old when you say you can compete in the masters!!!!..

Last two days I have been hacking around my friend Sally's parents farm and I think autumn is loving the change from being schooled alot to long rein hacking out, I know I am...tonight Sal and I had a lovely evening ride, it was such a nice time of day to go while the sun was setting, we have to make the most of these days as the winter cold days are looming...

My baby Girl loves to mow the lawns

I had to post this photo of Holly sitting on her dads knee while he mows the lawns, she loves it, she has her own ear protectors and sits there till the end and sometimes she even falls asleep...

My young fella is growing up

Today I went to see my yearling as Davids was surposed to be going on a transporter to be broken in as his is a harness horse and they get broken in early. Anyway we brought them in put them in the tie up area. I wanted to get some photos of Mr Grey to put on trade me as I am selling him and the photo's I had weren't that great..So heres my baby( horse) getting bigger by the day.

Mr Grey getting some cover experience

keeping up with the feet picking up

Summer is leaving us...

Today is the 3rd of March and offically we are now in autumn...although today was still rather hot you can tell by the sky and of course the mornings are slowly getting darker and the nights are creeping in a bit quicker that summer is on the way out. Tonight Kaz and I went for a lovely stroll up the road, it was such a nice evening and we decided that it would be nice just to cruise not push the horses as we had both had a full on day and really if you could do it it would have been nice to sit and relax back on the horse with a glass of wine in your hand sipping away and watching the sunset start to creep in.....but of course horses being horses there is no way you can do that...we wish!!!...anyway we are walking up the road and we get to the big Kaipikari Hill and there is some clowns hooning down the hill on there go cart, with a car following close behind and they stop just at the bottom of the hill with a big sideways skid...Great!!! thats going to be fun for our horses!!! so we decided to turn around and go back and down another road, so luckily for us we are just a few trot paces away from the next road and they come down the road with the car towing the go cart and it was making a terrible noise on the road so off we went heading for Wilson road, thankfully we got to the road and down a bit before they caught up...so all in all was a nice ride and was so nice just to cruise...surposed to be raining tomorrow.

Horse Power

Just wondering how many other people got to watch on TV the programme that martin Clunes is doing about horses, its really interesting, he has gone from country to country to find out about the horse and what makes them tick and how they have evolved over the years. He even went to mongolia to see the Takhi horses they are surposed to be the oldest living breed of horse still alive and there are only 250 of them left in the wild. they kind of looked like a cross between a zebra and a shetland pony, and are only ever a sandy brown/honey colour.
Its a series so am looking forward to the next one, I recommend any horsey person to try and get it to watch, Martin Clunes Horse power....

Taranaki Hunt Show

Competed at Taranaki Hunt show couple weeks back. Autumn's first round the ring dolly classes, I call them, went for a day out and to see how she went, really wanted to see what she would be like when the judge said prepare to canter and all of us canter on, we had a couple of leaps but otherwise Autumn went quite well, she ended up with the lightweight Hunter Champion....so way better than just an outing for her she was champion...

I'm back

The last few months have been pretty busy for me and have not had the time to get into my blog, I now have a new laptop which can run the internet by wireless so now I ahve the time at night to sit in front of tele and do some blogging...

Last time I blogged was back in Nov...soo much has been and gone since then...
I was working towards our Taranaki dressage champs, they were in the middle of January and we received over 100 entries from all over the north island.. there was some really tough competition and was great to see some of the big names there and the many stallions that we have now around the country that have been imported from Europe, turn up and see them looking very magnificent in all there testosterone...

Autumn went really well over the two days and we had some very well established horses in our grade...our rules here are that you don't have to move up a grade until you have 30 or more points in the grade above you so people tend to stick in the lower grades until all the big comps are done and the Horse of the year show and real in the prises then tend to jump up two grades the following year, it all seems a bit unfair when riding against tem but you just have to suck it up and do the best and try and achieve a good result for yourself. Autmn faried pretty well with over 30 entries in most classes getting great marks and being mid field in 3 tests and a 5th and 6th so overall I was rally happy with her whole attitude and her behaviuor for a young horse and second big show was outstanding.

I ahve been getting coaching with Jutta Rosenblatt german lady, she has a stallion called Vollrath Lessing he is very nice and she competed at the show with him...our lessons are going really well and She is helping me so much. I have another clinic this weekend so two days of hard dressage going to great for my legs!!!..

Jutta on Vollrath Lessing behind awakino Stallion