Barefoot eventing is back in full swing. After a couple of months training and consolidating and learning how to jump again, Cal is looking and feeling much more positive.
I’m still not sure what the most crucial change has been. The new Haylage has now been analysed for full mineral profile and the results are much more favourable. Iron is low, nitrogen to sulphur ration good, and zinc and copper deficient but not wildly so. I haven’t changed our bespoke recipe yet but will do once the 2016 cut is available for use later in the summer. All the horses look loads better muscle and skin wise, as well as having better performing feet.
The peripheral “paddock paradise” track is up and the grass eaten down to a level where I am comfortable experimenting with leaving grass sensitive Cal on the track for gradually increasing periods of time. He is still sensitive on hard stone chippings but performing well on all other surfaces and feeling much keener and more responsive.
And his breathing seems to be good enough. I have heard the odd cough but felt no obvious dip in performance.
And we have been doing more work, and more distance and fast work- mileage nearly always improve feet as well as fitness.
So Saturday was British Riding Clubs team horse trials at Lannymynech. I roped our groom friend Gill into tack cleaning with pizza and prosecco on Friday night. Our times were stupidly early; getting up at dawn in midsummer was a shocker.
Dressage was a good test- he did cough and head shake a fair bit during the warm up but managed to keep it together during the test and got a creditable 33. I was disappointed as I feel like we should be sub 30 now but for that test on the day it was absolutely fair.
Showjumping was interesting. One horse fell over in the warm up despite having studs in, as the thin grass on hard ground was very slippery. There was also lots of slipping and trotting around from other shod horses in the arena. This is also the venue and the date where Cal’s breathing problem finally manifested itself as an inability to jump a full round of show jumps last year.
This year, the fabulous barefoot pony felt very strong, secure and balanced. We had two poles down, both due to naff impulsion off the turn, i.e. rider error, but no stops and no time faults. Time can be an issue for the Irish bog pony.
Cross country, Cal was fab. He had an early stop at fence 4, a stout box with brush on the top just before the new water. This fence caused a fair few problems- we got away with one look. From then on Cal just got better and bolder and we both were grinning as we took a lovely sweeping line to home and sailed past the second to last fence instead of jumping it!!
Whoops… But the horse doesn’t know he missed a fence, he was just so proud and happy and chuffed and it felt great to have the cross country machine back in the room.
A few days to recover and regroup and this weekend the 80cm in the Cheshire Shield is our next challenge.
Action photos to follow
