Rain!!!!

Yes!!!! We have rain!! Real wet, earth soaking, grass growing rain!!!! Grow grass, grow!! It is the first proper rain we have had since last year some time and we are in quite a decent drought. Today's rain is no drought breaker but it will hopefully get some grass growing. Our poor horses are living on our winter hay stocks and hard feed at the moment. :-( It is going to be a loooooong winter.

We have had a busy couple of weeks. Spyke and I had our first show hunter outing with Showhunter Waitemata. Spyke was fabulously well behaved and did some really nice rounds. His real strength is in his consistency. He just rumbles around the course in a rhythm. We were in the top ten for our first round which I was THRILLED about. He lost a lot of marks through not using his shoulders fully, he was not lifting his knees and was dangling his lower leg. On the good side he was on the correct lead for every jump and didn't toucg any of them.

The second and third rounds were not as good as the first but that was completely my fault as I have not yet got the correct rhythm sorted and so we jumped a couple of jumps from the wrong spot which detracted from the smoothness of our round. We did 2 rounds at 70cm and then one at 80. It seemed a big jump from 70 to 80 but Spyke did his best with a flustered rider on top.

Our last round was a REAL challenge for me!!!! Because the day was running really late and the ponies had already finished they moved the second 80cm round over to the pony ring. The reason for this being such a huge challenge is that Spyke is prone to throwing in fairly sudden stops at some jumps he hasn't seen before and 80cm (while in reality being extremely small) is VERY challenging to me. I was very, very nervous and very nearly pulled out. Fortunately, I was able to pretty much go straight into the ring after our first 80cm. I had to really RIDE him into every jump. He had quite a few 'thoughts' going into the jumps but, while not pretty, we did a clear round. It was a HUGE confidence boost and I am looking forward to the WRC's Show Hunter this weekend.

At home I have started working on trying to get his shoulders up by doing some bounce grid work. We finish the grid with a single stride to an upright which is currently set at a metre (mucho nerves the first time!!!) Unfortunately, he can 'dangle' at a metre too. LOL Oh well, I shall persevere!!!!

I have also bought some clippers. I got some second hand Heinigers for an excellent price and have also invested in a small set for doing heads and fiddly bits so I am hoping to do some clipping to earn a bit of small cash.

I also turned a year older. I had a lovely day with a ride in the forest involving bubbles, home baking and a Spyke in a good mood. Followed by dinner at Lone Star.

Here are a few pics:
The 70cm round (see the dangly knees)

More 70

80cm I think

The last line of the scary course, this is the scariest jump!!!

1st jump of scary round

Pics from the weekend

Dogs and Horses, Horses and Dogs

Last weekend (Easter) was the weekend of the Bernese Mountain Dog Garden Party in Midhirst. I drove down on Good Friday which was HIDEOUS!!!! The traffic was APPALLING!!!!I basically stopped the instant I hit the motorway and it was a bit of a crawl after that. Fortunately, I know a back road and it paid dividends. :-) I went down the other side of the Waikato River and was the only car on the road until Huntly. The other side of the river was a car park so it saved me a LOT of time. Once I got to Ngaruawahia I was in a line of 20 - 30 cars all the way to New Plymouth. Normally it would take me 4 1/2 hours to get to New Plymouth but on this occasion it took 6 hours!!!
The Traffic in Awakino Gorge:

The Garden Party was great. We had a walk on the Friday afternoon (which we only just made it to) in King Edward Park in Stratford. Then we had a BBQ dinner at the grounds in Midhirst. Saturday was the challenge day. The girls seemed to enjoy the day and came out of it with loads of ribbons. We also learnt about Rally-O which looks like a great sport for berneseseseses.

Some Pics

Brina doing Rally-O

More pics can be seen here

On the Sunday we did some carting. There were only the 'core' berner club people left for that but I just love getting the girls out in their wagon. We will be doing a display at the Pet Expo in Hamilton at the end of July so we will need to work on the girls' carting fitness.

On Sunday afternoon I caught up with Maree and Andrew who were also in NP for Easter. It was great to catch up and by leaving on Sunday afternoon I had a great drive back to Auckland.

On Easter Monday four of us had a LOVELY ride in the forest, we hacked, jumped, galloped and went through the creek. Spyke was fab and it was a lovely way to spend a day.

This weekend we had Dressage Day 3 of the summer dressage series with the WRC. Spyke was lovely and it was really hot again. We did a novice test this time. I was really, really happy with his trot and walk work but I accidentally jabbed him when I asked him to canter and he gave me some pretty horrible canter. :-( However, he still managed to get a 4th which I was stoked with. We did a prelim test too although he was arguing with me again so I didn't ask him to go into any sort of frame but he still managed a 2=. We also did a prix caprilli test again. Spyke was almost asleep when we started the test and was somewhat surprised by the first jump (the big noddy LOL) so he managed to take a rail....at all of 60cms!!!!! However, that woke him up and he did the rest really nicely. I was pretty confident that we had completely blown our chances with the rail but the little bugger managed to win the prix caprilli again. Luff that horse!!!! I will post a couple of pics of the dressage once I have downloaded them.

Today I caught up with Beryl, Richard and Heather at the Botanic Gardens for a dog walk which was really lovely. Although I did manage to have a sudden altitude adjustment when I was walking down by the creek. Them rocks are really, really slippery and I ended up with a very wet and muddy leg and butt. Gonna pay for that tomorrow methinks!! In the afternoon I checked up on Tina's two youngsters and have a lovely ride on Spyke.

Next weekend though is our Show Hunter debut. I am very, very excited about it!!!! I soooooo hope it goes well!!!!!

Some other pics:
The Mountain

Maree

Sunset at Westgate