Three Men and a Little Lady (and a product review of Equi

 Aaaaand she does it again. Off the grid while my entire life got turned upside down!

Following on from my last post, poor Romy didn't feel right at all at the Dressage Ireland Summer Nationals. I'm not sure if it was the increase in training but my gut was telling me he wasn't 100% and I'm so upset with myself that my competitive nature took over and I decided to give nationals a go anyway. Looking back at the videos it's clear he wasn't comfortable. He was eliminated from his first test for being irregular so I decided to withdraw from the test the following day and then give the freestyle a go two days later. Looking  back I should have listened to my horse and taken him home but we went up the centre line anyway. Big lesson learnt that day. HUGE. We got around the test without being eliminated but it wasn't pretty. Poor Romy Pony.

Romy the Fresian Cow

We came back from nationals and after some investigative work by the fab team at EquiVet I decided to give Romy a proper break, a year off while I focussed on Luna. So off Romy trotted into the arms of Jane, an absolute guardian angel, who welcomed him into her field in Meath where she fed him carrots and cuddles on the daily. Romy settled into field life really well and other than looking the size of an overgrown Fresian cow he is still thriving up there (almost two years later!). I haven't retired him, I hopped up on him in the field a few weeks ago and Oh. My. God. The feeling he gives is just incredible. But as the title of this post suggests, Romy wasn't the only man in my life to have a piece of my heart so things changed pretty rapidly for me which meant Romy was living the field life for longer than I had planned!

Luna meets The Boys

2020 brought me a fabulous hooman partner / groom / all round top notch guy as well as a soon to be hooman baby / wrecking ball / chief smiler. So all the plans I had with the horses were thrown into a shredder and we went back to the drawing board. Luna was going from strength to strength but I took things slowly with her. And by slowly I mean slooooooooowwwwwww. She had lots of breaks in between backing her in January of her 4th year to me hanging up the towel in Augsut at 20 weeks pregnant. I then handed her over to Lucy and the fab team at Greenogue to do some more riding and handling with her and then at the end of September she joined Romy up in Angel Janes field to boss the boys about and grow another 22 hands. So much for not having another tall horse  :-/

Three in the field and the little one said...

2021 came, hooman baby was born in February, we moved house in March and by April I was itching to get back in the saddle. Unfortunately Greenogue was now too far from the new house so I popped her up the road to Brooke Lodge livery yard, which coincidentally is the same yard I learnt how to ride in decades (ugh, it still hurts to say that) ago. And MY GOD how the break helped Luna. I gave the brave girl pants to Lucy at Greenogue to sit back up on her for a couple of weeks before I had a go but she really didn't put a foot wrong. I bought her initially because she had Jazz on the sire line and I felt I was ready for something sharp, not realising I would be pregnant within the year and I am SO happy that she wasn't how I'd originally hoped. She really has the brain of a seasoned pro on her and listens to her rider, gets confidence from her rider and if something scares her she'll look at it and with a nudge of the leg will keep on going. Sure, I need to pony club kick her from time to time but not often and she took my post-partum bowl of jelly body and guided it around the arena without any complaints or tantrums. I felt safe. And let me tell you, if there's something that will shake your confidence as a rider it's having an entire human being waiting at home for you, needing you to be alive at the end of the day.

So the time eventually came to start competing young Luna. Our first show at the lovely Redhills had one gorgeous test and one car crash test. The first one went so well that I got cocky and didn't ride the second test properly. When she nearly left the arena I started laughing my head off and the rest of the test was a bit of a joke to me. Again, lesson learnt, take things more seriously. Each bad movement is only that movement, the next one can be perfect. But I kind of gave up after the first bad movement and came away with a rubbish score. Poor Luna deserved better but we went out to our first show with the aim of enjoying it and Luna behaving and she was a SUPER star. I was smiling from ear to ear on the way home. 

At this point I want to mention the supplement I had Luna on. We had 

won a lesson with Kate Dwyer from NutriScience in 2019, who also came to the lesson and had a chat with me about Luna. They then provided me with a goodie bag and one of the things they gave me was the Gastro Care. Luna had been treated for ulcers when she first came in for backing and when she had big moments of stress, like a yard move for example, I had noticed her getting quite ulcery, dropping weight, being a little unpredictable under saddle. So when we moved to Brooke Lodge I thought it would be a perfect time to put her on the supplement. She settled into the new yard surprisingly well and I do think the supplement helped. But the big tester came when she was coming to the end of the tub...I had to decide if it was enough for her or if we should keep on going. So we let the tub run out. Big mistake. She started to kick out in the canter. She started to look at me when I put the saddle on. And she was all in all less happy to be ridden. So I made an emergency plea to NutriScience and had a new tub delivered shortly after. Within a week of her being back on the supplement she wasn't kicking out in the canter anymore. Her floppy ears were back in action. And she was generally looking much shinier and happier. We then took her to her second show where she got a great score of 72%, winning the class, and another score of 63.3%....the test had been gorgeous up to a point but we had been changing a few things in the canter and Luna got excited so she just wanted to canter canter caaaannnttttteeeeerrr. Not great when you're trying to do a 20 meter trot circle. But she got heaps of 8s and 8.5's up to that point so I came away so happy with her. 

Yesterday was Lunas third show and we felt ready. I had my serious face on. We had nailed the canter transitions. And Luna felt more relaxed and listening to me than she had in ages. And she only went and won her first class on a whopping 76% but she also won the second test on 68.68% with a error of course thrown in and a couple of iffy movements. But I HAD learnt my lesson and rode the next movement as if we were winning. The wind was howling in Marlton yesterday and horses were on their toes and Luna took it all in her stride. I never thought I'd strike it lucky with a second horse who had as good a temperament as Romy but Luna is NEARLY reaching his good boi status. 

Little clip of the test can be found here: 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CSTm7UpD4Ha/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Horse Sport Arena

I've tried various horse supplements on all my horses over the decades, YES DECADES, that I've owned horses and there are really only two that I would strongly stand behind; NutriScience Gastro Care is one of those supplements. I have a happier horse which means she's more eager to do her work and I can't wait to get up and ride her these days. She's a wee dote! 

So. We have qualified for summer nationals. I'm not going to be cocky about it this time so I hope Luna feels up for it come the week of nationals. Instead of putting the hard work in now I'm going to give Luna some time off and then I'll slowly pick her back up before having another small break before nationals. Hopefully this little lady has lots of floppy ear moments and lots more wins in her future.