Terry - as usual you are an inspiration ! ..but dont be disheartened at ther farrier: you just met someone who NEEDED to meet you ! this guy needed to see how awesome your barefoot horse is, and you never know, you may just have set him thinking.
Jake just done second funride at Kinmel no boots. Jake's mate Taz also went without boots. One stoney section at beginning meant we edged onto mid-verge but otherwise fine. Did this in half the time it took last time - about 1/3 way round we ended up with 3 other stranger danger horses, which he actually LOVED and decided it was a race . Rather more bucking with this approach - bloomin hooligan but plenty of uphill gallops helped me stay in my seat and some awesome gallops where my little flatracer went like a stonk.
All in all, he coped amazingly well and popped over good number of smaller jumps like a trooper.
So pleased with my boy . _________________ X
SueH with Jake and Clay
Did the same ride as you today Sue, but you must have been much earlier than us. Carly and his new girlfriend, barefoot, Cleveland Bay x TB, Khali (rather confusing to say the least!) had a whale of a time. Carly even jumped over some small obstacles in the woods . A good opportunity to show off No problems over the stoney bits, so glad we had neither shoes nor boots on throught the thick muddy bits. Lots of fast grassy going, didn't rush but still did the 10 miles in an hour and a half. Rooster had a good fittening mountain ride yesterday in preparation for his first 64k next weekend in Lincolnshire (fingers crossed of course) which we are hoping to do without boots Did you get caught in the rain yesterday Terry? Well done on your grade 2. What are you doing next?
It was a surprise about the farrier as I have never really encountered this before in the past 5 years of competing barefoot, even when I raced over 120km they didn't pass comment other than amazement at the end.
I am sure they took some learning from it though!!
Helen, was really lucky it only rained heavily as I was loading to come home! Some nice drizzle on route which was welcoming to cool Meds down.
Good luck for next week, Rooster will be fine, just enjoy yourself
I am at Ludlow in 2 weeks with Saqr, followed by Lindum with Izaak and Saqr again, pretty busy season really as Izaak with me for the season so trying to fit in competing 4 and training them
See you in the week I am sure,
A friend and I did the last day of the BBR as a test ride - 17.4 miles of which at least 60% was roads and stony tracks. The boys loved it, and look fresh and ready to go again this morning (which is kind of the idea in view of the length of the BBR ).
Fantastic weather for it - cool, breezy and cloudy which was a big help in keeping flies under control. The double whammy of SSS and a Devon wonder-remedy based on neem oil seemed to be a fairly good way of keeping the little bastards at bay, though we had to thwack horse-flies on a regular basis.
Had a lovely ride yesterday in the sunshine - went all the way from the farm to the strawbery farm, collected four punnets, then went back tot he house to deliver them to the kids. Must be about 10 miles but in the heat that was more than enough for both of us.
Only problem was getting him past the big sign of a smiling strawberry! It did look a bit scary.
Met some folks up there who have horses and they were commenting how they couldn't ride their horses without shoes on the roads - apparently they just wouldn't cope...well, if they can't walk out on Tarmac without shoes then you have some issues to examine - the evidence that a healthy horse can do it is right here.
Terry: I love your posts... you are so busy with your horses and I always look forward to reading what you guys have been up to. Well done with the farrier....
Did a Level 1 Trec in Mansergh Cumbria with Pie and a friend who's pony is barefoot but young and green and only done 2 bridlerides before, so we wanted a nice gentle introduction to competing for her.
Gorgeous countryside... Pie got 7 10's out of the 16 obstacles, 3 zero's (what do you mean I have to stand in this circle for 10 seconds and NOT eat the grass.. foolish woman!!!) and he got a 10 for his Control of Pace Canter and a 0 for his walk (let's piaffe on the spot on the way down to my girlfriend who's calling me!!!... don't I look handsome???) Barefoot for the COP & PTV and booted up for the POR, which was a 12km.... did lots of cantering, lots of gates, 3 checkpoints on the way... found the ticket and remembered to mark the card with it..... nearly unheard of that for me!!! Rained on in big thunderstorm for 20 minutes.. lovely weather the rest of the day.... hideous horse flies... Really good day and the little palomino was a superstar, very chilled, very fit and lovely lovely feet.
Morris and Fari did the same ride as Helen N and Sue H. Lovely ride, Morris was as keen as mustard, left my face behind again on a number of gallops and he was really enthusiastic about the jumps and did lots of the bigger ones.
Fari was on top form racing Morris and trying to drag my sister into jumps she wasn't keen on doing. He managed completely bare although trotting over a pile of bricks was left to Morris. He has been much better of late after I started to give him a probiotic and liver and immune support. The change in the angle of his growth is quite dramatic.
Encouragingly I counted up about 15 barefoot horses at the ride which is not bad considering in the olden days it was just me and Helen N.
I think Morris is well up for 260 miles now and he will think it even better if there are some cross country jumps in the way too I am tending to wonder now if he can be my hunt horse for this coming season
Something really weird happening to front hooves !! The heels are needing no trimming what-so-ever after they have kept popping up time after time the last few months (many months really!!) Also said heels are widening loads and really quickly too and frog is getting huge too !! Wow !!
Said pony has been grassless for just over 3 weeks now and was put on Hilton Metabolyte 2 weeks ago. I have just started allowing TEENY amounts of grass by moving elec fence and so far so good. No pulses and bad footiness we had a couple of weeks ago as gone. She also looks really well in herself and her coat has taken on a real shine. The Metabolyte has Milk Thistle in it to detoxify her liver along with Goats Rue herb and Artichoke to help her insulin issues. I like what I'm seeing so far !
I could see the message passing through her mind without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind
Oh Bruce, how often that happens to us all Great description of the self-editing that goes on when most people see a barefoot horse out on anything other than an arena!
I think that's one of the reasons why, contrary to my expectations, hunting folk seem to be some of the most open-minded. They don't just see you for a few minutes doing a dressage test, a showjumping round or one or two cross country fences. You're in their faces for hours trotting along the road, cantering up hardcore tracks and jumping from impossible take-offs onto appalling landings, right beside them. I guess that may be why long-distance riders "get it" too. Had that vet donemany long distance vettings Terry?
And as an aside, how on EARTH does your bum cope with training FOUR:? ????
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- about 1/3 way round we ended up with 3 other stranger danger horses, which he actually LOVED and decided it was a race 
. A good opportunity to show off 
No problems over the stoney bits, so glad we had neither shoes nor boots on throught the thick muddy bits. 
Lots of fast grassy going, didn't rush but still did the 10 miles in an hour and a half. Rooster had a good fittening mountain ride yesterday in preparation for his first 64k next weekend in Lincolnshire (fingers crossed of course) which we are hoping to do without boots 
