Well we can quite honestly say that February has been a very challenging month with regards to the weather, especially after our January holiday in the Caribbean… It’s been a shock to the system!
It’s been full on with the new recruits and some old faces as well. We welcome back the maxi cob, The Ringmaster, who was second last year at HOYS as a four-year-old and the coloured cob, Churchtown Minstrel, who was third at HOYS last year. Both were first season novices last year and we are so proud of their progress.
We also welcome back coloured lightweight cob, Carnsdale Graffiti (Albert), who has had a few years break from showing where he has been having lots of fun show jumping and hunting with The Cooper Family. We originally brought Albert out as a young horse and Simon was second at HOYS and RIHS in the coloured classes with him.
There are also lots of new recruits this term, including Captain Fantastic (Benji) a coloured shoe cob that we broke in this winter for owner Hayley Erner. Benji is a super chap and we are thrilled with his progress, he has such a wonderful temperament.
Harriet Richardson’s lovely young grey cob, called Copenhagen (Teddy) has also joined us. Teddy was cob in hand champion at the BSHA National Championships last year and this will be his first year under saddle.
We also have a number of other young cobs to bring on and we are very excited to bring them out, including a very promising chestnut lightweight cob, Ginger, who we will aim at the early shows.
We ventured out to one show in February, which was the BSPA Festival and Winter Championships at Keysoe. Churchtown Minstrel had his first outing since HOYS and he won his Royal International coloured class and then stood section champion against seven classes of top class coloured horses. It was bitterly cold and we may just wait for the weather to improve slightly before we head out again.
In the mean-time we are busy training up the team with trips to the local indoor school and hopefully some riding around at a few local shows.
We hope everyone is coping with this awful weather. We are certainly making the most of feeding the Fibre-Beet to get some extra moisture into the horses, as they tend not to drink as much in cold weather. The horses are very much enjoying a warm breakfast on these bitter cold mornings.
