Finally back home after an eventful last few days!

As predicted my laptop battery died on Saturday before I had a chance to write a new blog and there was no where at Sheepgate to plug it in and charge it which was very disappointing, but I had the foresight to buy a powerbank which worked super for keeping my phone charged which meant I could leave little spinets of progress & pictures on Facebook, Instagram and of course my favourite twitter.

Saturday it was blowing a gale at Sheepgate, not so bad in the morning and I schooled Hubert K in the indoor and my word I got him forward and reacting off my leg! The power he has when he puts his mind to it is just mind blowing! Happy with the way he worked after Fridays performances I took him in the competition arena and just cooled him down. I was really really pleased with him.

My first test wasn’t until 16:35 so I had plenty of time during the day to pamper Hubert K and watch the dressage, there wasn’t a lot of people watching so it lacked a little bit of atmosphere and it was so cold with the wind. Slowly throughout the day the wind got worse, I had forgotten what its like trying to plait in the wind and cold when you can’t feel your fingers – not easy to say the least! By the time I got on Hubert K the winds had reached their peak and after an iffy warm up we went in arena 1 and started our test. I had a friend reading for me and because of the wind I could hardly hear her. You know that type of wind that knocks you backwards when you ride into it – that’s the kind of wind we turned up the centre line in – now I thought he wasn’t very forward thinking on Friday – this time I could bearly keep him in trot, we went for our canter and no response, so tried again and go a rocking horse canter, on our first circle I touched (like a feather) him with the whip and he stopped, spun, bucked, at one point I thought I was going to stay on as I clung around his neck but this seemed to make him panic even more, bucked again and off I fell – needless to say he was very forward thinking around the orchard and football pitches behind the competition arenas! I don’t know his name but about 10 of us were trying to catch him and eventually this guy got hold of a rein. Well it had been a pretty standard dressage show until then so we gave everyone some entertainment!!

We proceeded to ride in the indoor and he was a good as gold, but with the weather getting worse I decided today was not the day to take him back into the competition arena.

Saturday night was windy but quite warm so I sat with Hubert K in his stable until I got too cold and then went back to my relatively comfortable tent.

Sunday was Hubert K’s training day, so I enjoyed a lay in until 7:30 am (can’t remember the last time I did that!) and hand walked him in the morning in the rain and sat back and watched the others competing in heavy rain feeling rather smug! By late afternoon the sun was out but Hubert K was starting to get a little wound up in his stable. I rode him and that settled him a little but all evening he wasn’t happy – not himself at all.

Monday Ben and Hattie got to us at 9:20am just before the arena free time. By the time they got there I had already plaited, but felt there was something seriously wrong with Hubert K. With his history of colic surgery I was worried about him being stressed. His bed was a mess from him trying to dig his way out over night I couldn’t tell if he had pooed recently or not, so I decided to hand walk him for the arena rather than my planned ride. To my relief when we got back to the stable he had a poo (the things us horsey people are pleased about, others just wouldn’t understand!) but he was still really really stressed out. In the shop they had some Magic calmer tubes, so to avoid him getting himself wound up too much I tried one – it had no effect at all. I decided that I was going to warm up for my first test and see how he felt. But after riding for 20 minutes I knew that it wasn’t going to happen and he was just “not right” and withdrew him from both tests.

Packing up was a lot easier than packing to go away! We tried our best to clean out his stable but Sheepgate had not emptied any of their muck boxes so they were all overflowing before we even started.

Hubert K has never been a problem travelling but he was so wound up that for the first hour on the way home he kicked the grooms door constantly. He got home and very happily unloaded and had a big bran mash that he wolfed down.

Today he has had the day off and tonight he has gone very happily back to his night field with his friend Zie Zie.

So Sheepgate turned out not to be the show we had hoped for but it was a big learning curve for me and Hubert K and we are just deciding whether to go to Houghton Hall or Fenning Farm on the 21st May. Just shows after such a calm and collected show at Ferry Farm anything can happen!

Now time to concentrate on the youngsters at home for a couple of weeks.

Anna-Lisa x