I can hardly believe that a year has gone by without a single update! It just shows how busy we have all been! By the end of last year, Rialet and Joane took part in the Sanef Schools’ Finals and Crystal surprised everyone by winning the overall performance riding! She was as good as gold – none of her usual squealing and bucking!
Some of our riders have acquired some good horses for themselves inthe past few months. Alacrity, our black Al Mufti gelding, was bought by Elisbe and the pair has already done very well at the Sanef Schools’ shows. Natasha was given Firefox, an Irish Sport horse, by her dad and they are now competing in juniors. (see photos) Jennie bought a stunning grey WBx mare to add to her lovely WBx gelding and is planning to start competing both soon. Rialet found a lovely Warmblood mare called Lukendale Olympia in Stellenbosch and the pair is going from strength to strength. Their latest achievement at their first showing show, was a 1st in the show hunter, two 2nd in working hunter and show riding and two 3rd in equitation.
Since our last update, Anytime has made a full recovery – with a few hick-ups! Just as we were about to start riding him again, he went lame with a very painful abscess in his front hoof. When we had the foot x-rayed, we also had his shoulder scanned to see what the hard lump was that seemed to be stuck in there. At first the vet thought it may be a piece of wood, but as it turned out, it was a piece of bone the size of the palm of my hand! I know that he had been run into a pole when he took off with a novice rider at the spelling farm where he resided before coming to us and this chip off his shoulder seemed to be from this accident. True to his survivor’s spirit, however, the chip was removed and healed without a scar. In December, we all held our breath as Steph saddled him for the first time. When he fell ill, he’d been given a 20% chance of survival and when he survived, only a 20% chance of ever being ridden again. There were tears all around when the little man with the big heart trotted around with his nose on the bit like he hadn’t been ill for a single day! He has since been to a dressage show (only his second ever – sores of 58 & 60%) and to a showing show where he came 2nd in the hack and 5th in the show riding horse, despite the fact that his hips still show the scars of his ordeal. Steph has been doing a wonderful job with him while I was unable to ride but I am happy to report that I am now back in the saddle. Steph’s own gelding, Absolute Power, or Ranch to those he hasn’t devoured yet, also did very well at the dressage show and brought home a second place!
In November 2008, Caity started riding the big chestnut Sevillano and built up quite a relationship with this quirky character. She rode him at the Welsh showing show in November and nearly gave the judge a heart attack with the speed this boy can move at in the Show Hunter class! Caity soon discovered that his talents really lie with jumping and then they were off to their first jumping show. Although he jumped everything, 60 cm was a bit low for him and he knocked a jump. At the second show, he jumped 70cm and things were really looking up until disaster struck. He slipped and almost fell down, dislodging Caity and then had such a fright because he’d never before had a rider fall off him, that he took off at his now famous speed, was unable to stop at the arena’s fence and crashed through the wooden pole, hitting his stifle on a gate post and hurting his hip. As a result, he was off for three weeks and just when he was back into work, Caity fell off her own Bubbles when he had a huge spook at a very scary feedbin and suffered concussion! Now it was Tanya’s turn to ride Sevillano but he had her figured – he wanted Caity and not her! He promptly bucked her off and on coming down, he cut his foot on the edge of the dressage arena – six arteries off! He bled like a slaughtered pig and has now been off work for another month! This was the second time in as many weeks that Tanya had come off – quite a laugh for all of us as she hadn’t fallen in years! Her first fall was off Diane’s Flying North in a jumping lesson – quite a sight to see! Tanya has, however, done a great job with Flyn while Diane had to go back to work after the birth of little Matthew. Flyn’s now working beautifully on the bit and even brought home a 1st for show hack at the recent showing show.
When we last reported, we were expecting quite a few babies. Three little girls and three boys were born since July last year. Diane’s Matthew and Jackie’s Matthew are both gorgeous little boys and Ilze and Johan recently added Zean to all the babies at the yard.
We had quite a few fun events in the past few months. August saw the usual showing and riding school show, November was the Welsh Show and in December we had the best pony camp yet. After all the rain jsut the day before, children were swimming in the lunge ring and clothes will never be the same colour again! We also had a number of fun outrides, some super parties and a group jumping lesson where we played chicken and Braveheart surprised us all by jumping over 1m. Even Dido, a Friesian mare, tucked her feet up and almost took the jump off with her big belly but loved every moment of it! Then we had our evening lesson which we had been meaning to do for three years and of course, it had to be the first cold night of the year! Under the lights, even Fearless worked himself up into so much excitement that Jennie landed on her feet! We were surprised that he could still get so excited, as Fearless has now given his owner, Ona, so much confidence that she also went to the dressage show and showed everyone that she is no longer in contention for the “Nervous Nella” award which we actually named after her!
The yard has also recently started marketing the Jurust Boerperd Stud’s horses for them and the first one has just been sold to Jennie for her little girl Jessica. Jessica also competed in the lead rein classes at the recent showing show on Pasella, which now belongs to the yard, and won the show pony class. Her fancy dress as Goldilocks and the three bears was an absolute hit (see photos)