What a summer!!

It has been a busy time at Bluehorse.

We have a new arrival on the yard called Maximillian Mannilla, also known as Nelly.  She is a lovely dark bay warmblood mare with a fantastic trainable attitude and has the makings to become a very talented dressage horse.

Alpedrina, the mare from Portugal, has now been successful backed by Rebecca. Rebecca has worked really hard with the mare throughout the summer holidays  to gain her trust and establish a good working routine with her.

At the beginning of the month Annabel competed for the first time on The Duke. She came third and was thrilled! I rode Zenu for Sue. Zenu was really good and had a second. Charlotte took The Duke in the Novice, they also made a great pair.

We have also had several horses in for re-schooling.  We have been able to iron out some issues the riders had by establishing trust on the ground first. We have been working on trailer loading and as a result the horses are a lot more relaxed and seem less fazed by things. Rosie has spent time up here with us developing a better understanding of her mare and has grown in confidence.

Last weekend we held a clinic, to our surprise the whole Williams family from Dorset came down for the weekend with their ponies. Zara and Annabel had certainly been practicing what we had taught them the last time we saw them as there was a vast improvement in their ponies. Over the weekend Zara, Annabel, India and Rosie enjoyed learning more techniques on the ground and spending time riding Sash’s shetland ponies!! I think they were pretty tired by the end!! Both Liz and Mike also joined in with the children. We all had great fun playing games in the arena and getting them to understand how a horse feels. We also had them work some of Kate’s horses in the round pen –they were very good at it too!

During their visit Sara from London, an excellent rider and trainer, came to look at horses for herself. Sara has now joined the Bluehorse team and will be working with some of our horses in London.
Liz had a lesson with Sara which she thoroughly enjoyed. Sara also gave myself, Charlotte and Kate some lessons, which was really helpful. She worked really hard on our positions –it’s so easy to become fixed on the horse and forget about yourself ! She came just in the nick of time as I had a talent spotting competiton the following week.

The competition was good fun but I was quite nervous! Luella allowed me to borrow her  horse Ticao.  We had to ride a test and then discuss it. We then swapped horses with the other candidates.
It was a good experience and I was pleased. I will be more prepared for it next year. Well done to Mark Cunliffe who won it in the young riders section.

During the last weekend of August Freddie spent a couple of days teaching at Bosneives. We also had a demonstration near Falmouth at a very nice yard, Everyone was very welcoming and we had lots of fun. We are soon there for those interested in a clinic let us know.

Kate has returned from her trip to Portugal to look at some horses with Freddie. The young stock that Freddie has produced are amazing bred from a fabulous stallion called Quialto. They are all big strong top horses. Kate took Sara to see some horses and needless to say, they are returning with two if not three. Sara had a marvellous time and is very excited to bring her new horse here for a few weeks to settle him in to the UK.

Finally, my goal of organising Dressage competitions here is about to happen The 14th of September is our first dressage day. The judge is available to talk about your test afterward to give feed back which we think will be very helpful.