Caroline’s blog > Get the Gallop

April 24, 2013

Road trip x 2

Yesterday I set off on my road trip to Gothenburg. First it was to take Dizzy to my mothers place, and then on with the lorry down to Gothenburg.

Dizzy wasn’t too sure she wanted to go into the horse box but after a while she gave in and then stood quietly for the whole journey. Good girl!

The other part of the road trip wasn’t as smooth. After having been on the road for 1,5h the lorry started to slow down and refused to gain speed. Luckily I got hold of a garage that could take us in but it took us 4 hours and a big cheque before we were back on the road again. Not the best way to arrive in Gothenburg, stressed and with a time limit of 1hour to get the stand up!

But we’re here now and all is up and ready and good!

Dizzy before 2h journey to Welsh Mountain filled green fields!

SO hard to not look at the video screen all the time, instead of the road.

By CarolineAlmgren — Filed under Caroline's blog — Tagged with Tags: Horse blog, travel with horse

April 22, 2013

Well done Dizzy!

Yesterday we had our first ‘proper’ traning session, it was just pole work in the indoor school but doing it with an instructor always puts a bit more pressure on, suddenly you can’t drift out and loose focus just to re-do at your own leisure. I was also curious to see how Dizzy was gonna react with all the other horses and all the colourful poles everywhere but she was fine! And she behaved like an angel! Yay! And of course it has left me with wanting more! Next will be showjumping lessons! But first, Gothenburg Horse Show for some inspiration. I’m gonna drive Dizzy down to my mothers place where she will have some holiday with mums Welsh Mountain ponies. They still haven’t opened the big grassy fields at the yard she’s at normally so without riding and only being out in a small field without grass she would probably go a bit bananas.

Haven’t got any pictures from yesterday unfortunately but will compensate with lots of pics from Gothenburg!

xCaroline

By CarolineAlmgren — Filed under Caroline's blog — Tagged with Tags: Gothenburg Horse Show, Horse blog, Showjumping

April 19, 2013

Gothenburg Horse Show count down!

Next week I’m off to Gothenburg to spend the whole (!) week at Gothenburg Horse Show and the World Cup Finals. Can’t wait! Haven’t been there since I was about 14… Hoping for lots of fun but also a bit worried about what my energy levels will be like towards the end of the week. Coffee galore!

I’m gonna try and post pics and updates every day! If you’re going, hopefully we’ll meet there!

xCaroline

By CarolineAlmgren — Filed under Caroline's blog — Tagged with Tags: featured, FEI World Cup, Gothenburg Horse Show, Horse blog

April 19, 2013

Spring is here and we’re barefeet

In time for Tom’s Shoes ‘One Day Without Shoes‘ campaign Dizzy finally got rid of her shoe. John Ricketts got it off after two session and so now we can take it easy and work a lot before it’s time to shoe.
Did some polework on Wednesday, she was a star even though it was the first time over poles in a long time. I felt we had to prep a bit since we’ve got a lesson on Sunday which involves a lot of polework.

Since spring is finally here I’m looking forward to lots of hacking out. I prefer to ride out and not in the schooling arena, especially if you’ve got access to great riding tracks which we do at this yard we’re at. One problem though will be all the spring puddles… I’ve noticed puddles isn’t Dizzy’s favourite. Hopefully we can convince the calm and sweet Fjord horse at the stable to join us and have a calming influence.

Here’s two pictures of some of John Rickett’s work.

By CarolineAlmgren — Filed under Caroline's blog — Tagged with Tags: Hacking, Horse blog, John Ricketts

April 4, 2013

To shoe or not to shoe

So, yesterdays farrier visit ended with us being back where we started. One shoe and three hooves without. Dizzy refused to let him get close to her feet with any tools whatsoever. He was great though and really worked with her, getting her to accept him and in the end she was good and lifted her feet when he tapped her legs. But o’boy, still far from being shoe-ready… Back to square one that means! She’s always been very cautious about her legs. It took a lot of work just to be able to touch her hind legs. But then she was good and she’s been ‘normal’ for the last year or so. But then when the shoeing came into the picture it took her back to where we started.

Dizzy and her soon to be best friend, the farrier!

But, not much to do than work on it! And tomorrow John Ricketts is coming out to the yard and will do a session with Dizzy. He he. Not sure she knows what’s coming. John is a horse development specialist, and has done lots of work with race horses here in Scandinavia as well as all types of horses (and owners). I’ve never ‘met’ or ‘used’ someone like him so it will be very interesting!

Even if it’s not science or any groundbreaking new hocus pocus that he does, it is still quite remarkable how bad we (read I) am at copying what John and others like him do. Is it because we’re scared and afraid of doing it wrong? Or are we just too much into our set routines that we can’t take a step back and re-do or change it all. I don’t know!

I’ll try and take some pictures tomorrow to show you! Keep your fingers crossed Dizzy will love it and be a new, ready for shoes, horse after!

xCaroline

By CarolineAlmgren — Filed under Caroline's blog — Tagged with Tags: Farrier, Horse blog, Horsemanship, John Ricketts

April 2, 2013

When it rains it pours

So Dizzy had her swollen hock last week. And just as it was calming down and disappearing nicely, she managed to take off one of her front shoes in the field. This wouldn’t normally be a big thing. With other horses. But Dizzy has only been shod ones and she HATES it. She’s always been very cautious about people touching and handling her legs, especially back legs. So shoeing her front two was no easy task. And the farrier who did it a few weeks back is based where Dizzy used to be stables so too far from here. Which means a new farrier will have the joy of handling her tomorrow noon. Yay. Poor chap. And me. And Dizzy. Fingers crossed.

And also, to add to the excitement. A new mare has been introduced to the little herd in the field. They were three mares and now they’re four. And suddenly Dizzy is all alpha female and makes sure to keep the other two mares away from the new one. Only that the ‘new’ one is quite more senior than her and probably thinks Dizzy is a very annoying teenager. So some kicking and running today but so far no bruises, fingers crossed it will go better tomorrow.

Haven’t got any pics to share so instead – go out and buy the latest issue of The Horse Rider’s Journal! There’s LOTS of gorgeous pictures to drool over there. And good articles too!

Good night!

xCaroline

By CarolineAlmgren — Filed under Caroline's blog — Tagged with Tags: Farrier, Horse blog, Horse shoe, The Horse Riders Journal

March 25, 2013

A walk on the wild (read slippery) side

When I came out to the stable this morning Dizzy had a swollen back leg (or hock). Guessing it might be caused by too much running around in the very icy field. I’ve been doing the same (running around on ice, all though not in a field). This morning I had a big fall on an icy patch and slammed my knee in the ice. Turns out Ariat boots aren’t ice-proofed. So now me and Dizzy both got swollen knees.

I massaged her back left hock (should have done mine as well) with some Arnica gel and ee’ll see what she looks like this afternoon. So no riding this morning instead we went for a walk. The sun was shining and birds were singing, I even had to unbutton my jacket, could it be that spring is on its way? End of March….

I also put up a tasty likit ball in her stable, only I changed the location of it just after taking these photos as I don’t believe the other horses would have appreciated the sound of the ball against the railings.

xCaroline

By CarolineAlmgren — Filed under Caroline's blog — Tagged with Tags: Ariat, Horse blog, Likit

March 21, 2013

The lucky white britches…

CNN have done a short interview/video with Charlotte (and Valegro), a very nice short piece.

And it’s fun to see CNN writing out breeches like britches, nothing wrong with that but it was a first for me. I even had to google it as i first thought the american network had spelled it wrong. But no. I’m sure now that I’ve seen it ones I will see it everywhere.

By CarolineAlmgren — Filed under Caroline's blog — Tagged with Tags: Charlotte Dujardin, CNN interview, featured, Horse blog, Valegro

March 21, 2013

Dizzy out on a mini-adventure

Ok, very mini in this case. We basically walked around another corner at the yard. Where we hadn’t been before. But o’boy was that interesting! Lots of things to smell and look at. We’re soon gonna go out a bigger adventure, our first proper hack! Together with a calm older horse in the stable I’m hoping it will be ok. We’ll see how it goes….

Smelling

Looking

And more smelling

After the walk we tacked up for a bit of schooling in the indoor school. After a while she decided it was time to stop, all energy emptied. Well not really but she was quite content with afterwards and enjoyed her carrots a bit extra I think.

Finished for the day

By CarolineAlmgren — Filed under Caroline's blog — Tagged with Tags: featured, Horse blog, Youngster

March 13, 2013

Not just work, work and work

I’ve just come back from Herning in Denmark where the Horse & Rider fair took place last week. The fair is a massive shopping fair which is crazily big, and at the same time in the neighbouring halls the Danish Warmblood Association hosts their annual Stallion gradings and shows and young horses championships. So it’s easy to say that it’s a massive operation.

One thing that really surprised me was the fact that you can walk through the stables. No pass, no band. You could just walk by and up to these amazing stallions, some worth zillions of money. Quite amazing. And the studs, at least the bigger ones, decorated their areas beautifully with flowers and signs advertising the stallion in the stable. Very nice indeed.

An old friend of mine was there showing her stallion and she did confirm that yes, the horses are absolutely exhausted at the end of the show. Especially the youngsters. With everything going on and loads of people constantly walking by the stable the horses were as you can expect knackered. But I’m sure most of them enjoyed it.

While walking around enjoying the atmosphere I spotted a well known figure. Riding on one of Stutteri Ask‘s stallions, I had to take a paparazzi pic of him (yes, I know, I’m rubbish at paparazzi-pics…). Stutteri Ask is owned by Lego-owner Kirk Kjld Kirstiansen who also owns the famous stud Blue Hors Dressage.