More jumping...!

Oscar and I went along to a jumping clinic on Sunday, organised by the fantastic Waitemata Riding Club, with Lisa Coupe as the instructor. She was fantastic, even with us in the baby heights class, pretty good really for someone who usually jumps 1.20m+ heights. Oscar had lots of fun and me too once I got over the nerves a bit. Sarah and Bert, and Ellie and Spyke were there too, in the higher class that was on before ours. Spyke was a bit of a toad and did two fairly decent sized rears (no idea why) and then put in a stop at the scary jump that most horses had a thing about, and Ellie hit the ground. He did settle down after that and did a few lovely jumps but never seemed to be happy with the scary jump!

Oscar didn't much like that one either but it was good for me to have to ride him forward into it. Our last two rounds (over the same course) were fab, and it really clicked in my head that it feels so much better when I actually ride him forward.

So last night I went down to Ellie's place with her and Sarah, and we did more jumping and worked on some 2 point canter. It was sooo much fun! Oscar is a wee star and very kind over the jumps. He was being pretty lazy, so we didn't really have heaps of forward-ness but he did all I asked him to so pretty good really. Was great having Ellie and Sarah there to yell at me (in a nice way!)

Anyway - some pics from the clinic:

Jumping pics!

Oscar goes jumping!

All finished :-)

Letting it ALL hang out afterwards - chatting to the mare next to him who was sooo not interested in him

Silence is golden

But not very common in these parts right now.

We have had trees being felled for the past 6 weeks or so and it has not been a fun time. Firstly the guys wanted to start up their industrial strength chainsaws at 7am - we managed to convince them that 8am was a nicer start time. Their reason for starting early was to 'avoid the heat of the day'. Nuts really given the week that they said this, there was a cold spell and we had a high of 9 degrees on one of those days.

Anyway they are about to be evicted, because they have had their third and final chance. Chance one was when they 'accidentally' brought down a concrete, reinforced power pole and then went and sold the wire that just happened to come down with it. Chance two was when they brought a tree down onto the yards and demolished one of the newly built horse pens and the top rails of the gate into the cattle yards. And chance three was when I got home yesterday to find that they had brought down the one tree I asked them not to bring down and also left the bloody gate open into the horse paddock.

Problem is if you tell them stuff that you are unhappy about it just goes over their heads. They even managed to blame us for the problem they are having making money on this job. Didn't realise it was our fault they demolished the pens...

Anyway the driveway area looks pretty different now. This is the view from the gate up towards the house, heaps more open:

What remains of the tree that destroyed the yards


The tree (far left where the gaping hole is) that wasn't meant to come down...

The parking spot off to the side of the drive, now covered in sawdust

Panorama - can see the shed really clearly now

Took Oscar on his second ever jumping competition yesterday. Was very very low key - just a riding club day. We did one whole round of showjumping - how brave, lol! But he did really well given we have done no jumping at all for a couple of months at least. Then we went to the forest with Ellie & Spyke and Nic & Jake and had a great ride. Oscar even got brave and wanted to be in front for a change - even when we had a canter and he was lolloping along really well, not feeling like he was a bit cautious about being in front at all.

He did tarnish himself when he had a tanty about Jake behind him at one point, god knows why, Jake was a good horse length back. But Oscar felt the need to kick out 4 or 5 times. Maybe he was trying to show Jake that he's not some sissy boy that just wants cuddles all the time? Yeah right... I lost count of how many people he mugged at the jumping, trying to get cuddles!

Also have had some fertiliser put down on the hay paddock - after being rained out for 6 weeks we finally got it down last Wednesday and then on Thursday it rained quite nicely and washed it in well. So now we just watch the grass grow :-)