Retraining racehorses a saga

Ha! She is obviously too big for him then and you must give him to me!! Joking of course....just had to get in there first with the obvious riposte. :D:D
 
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Shelford today with Chucka. Late times (firstly dressage just before 3pm) Hot sultry weather and he arrived hot and bolshy..not good! Dressage was as normal a bit flat but very polite, he really does not see the point of this phase!! He normally scores around 35 penalty points we felt this might be a 32ish but not surprised to see 40.5 based on other scores at this event. Show Jumping was smallish and he still felt flat and took out poles from the two smallest jumps a bit worried as he came out of SJ panting and overheated. Fortunately by the time we were ready for XC rain had set in. As usual he stood like a rock in the start box and lept into stride on 'go' Flew the course including challenges he had never met for a clear round exactly on the allowed time ( daughter had not put her watch cn as we were concerned about his SJ overheating so going according to how he felt!!) Berriewood in two weeks time..working on dressage in the meantime.
 
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Berriewood is going to become a favourite venue!! Lots of space for parking and warm up on old airfield. and lovely friendy people. Warmed up for dressage basically by hacking round vast warm up area and arrived at arena relaxed and going well. Got the usual 36 score. just think this may be the norm for ponyish TB steps. Walked the XC course and wished we had entered the 100 as there were no questions he could not have dealt with. I commented to daughter I was surprised that it was a 5min9sec course as was all flat and didn't seem that long? Went to Sj and did a lovely round with an unfortunate pole on the second from last .

Off to XC. Started quickly and skipped round. The announcer read out the bio we submitted ( 6 yo ex racehorse in his third event) and commented she hoped he would cope with the 90, every vaguely difficult fence he cleared easily she said things like ' he's obviously been well prepared' Just one snag ..he finished in well under the time and incurred 9 too fast penalties. Now a big decision do we move him up to 100 where his natural speed wil be be an asset and if so where?? Clearly flat courseswith long galloping stretches are not ideal as he didn't even end up out of breath whereas many others did look tired!
 
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Bitten the bullet and entered Stafford BE100.. debating on air jacket as Birthday present for daughter. Had said we would do it when she went Novice but that was on 16.3 9yo I think 100 on 15.1 6yo may merit it!! Oddly I think however he is the better XC of the two.
 
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Bitten the bullet and entered Stafford BE100.. debating on air jacket as Birthday present for daughter. Had said we would do it when she went Novice but that was on 16.3 9yo I think 100 on 15.1 6yo may merit it!! Oddly I think however he is the better XC of the two.

Look forward to hearing how it goes.
Air jacket required me thinks;)
 
Do get her one eml.
OH has an air jacket - bought at the same time as our young RI bought one - in similar situation to your daughter. And I think they also have one at the yard which students can borrow when going cross country. You know how I have always worried about the students riding cross country for their exams. And training young horses is far riskier.
 
Sorry to briefly hijack -but i have ordered and then cancelled an air jacket. I am training 2 young horses to jump xc and as a result have had a couple of green pony type falls as they stop dead or duck out. All undramatic land on feet type falls. I think an air jacket going off in those circumstances would totally freak the horses out. So I am waiting till they are more established and my seat is better so I only fall for good reasons. Is that bonkers reasoning?!
 
No KPnut that is very logical! In a way my daughter needs it peversely as she has always started all her horses from scratch and is very secure over jumps but I feel that if she did fall it would be her and horse hence air jacket needed. We are fairly certain we will go for a Hitair which is slightly quieter amonst other advantages!
 
I am training 2 young horses to jump xc and as a result have had a couple of green pony type falls as they stop dead or duck out. All undramatic land on feet type falls. I think an air jacket going off in those circumstances would totally freak the horses out. So I am waiting till they are more established

OH and our RI chose Hit air too. Nothing to do with the noise tho. Both went to a shop where they could try on both brands.

KPnut I cant tell you what to do - no one here can. I can only report that shortly after my OH bought an air jacket, and there was a lot of talk about air jackets at the yard, I was being taught by a very experienced instructor, middle aged, horse owner - not well off - and one day she was summoned to the hospital since her daughter, a professional trainer, had had a fall while out hacking a youngster locally for another yard where she was employed. It was pretty scarey as no one knew what had happened.
The following week I was told that the daughter was not seriously injured thanks to the fact that she was wearing an air jacket. I was surprised that she had one but it turned out that her wearing an air jacket when riding young horses was normal round here.
It is noticeable in dressage for instance that once a few people start wearing a hard hat, it becomes the norm.I guess it is same with air jackets - if most people being paid to work with young horses wear air jackets when riding, it becomes the norm. And then may be insurance demands it too?
Since you are not being employed by a yard it would be up to you but the idea of not wearing safety gear because it might freak the horse seems wierd priority. You have kids.
 
Preparation well under way for Stafford BE 100.

.Bizzarely we were talked into going showing last weekend as a friend was staying en route to the North of Engand show so took non show horse Chucka and won the ROR performance class (workers for ex racehorses). Won £75 plus a jacket and lovely rossetes

Yesterday had a fantastic session with a local eventing trainer over a full up 110 SJ course going back next week to work on our dressage. XC is no issue for him just need to improve the dressage to trouble the score board!!
 
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He is a dream horse, talented but sane enough for even me to ride, just wish he was a bit bigger but there again I had a friend who competed at Badminton and internationally on a 15hh so 15.1.and a very important 1/2 " can do anything we want to!!
 
He sounds lovely! Is there much evidence that size is relevant? Within reason of course. You cant do Badminton at 12hh! But do 16/17hh horse event better than 15hh ones?
 
Chukka did his first BE100 today and loved it!

Dressage was much better.. difficult to say whether it was the harder test suited him better or the new approach including new bit and different warming up techniques suggested by a different trainer

Showjumping was perfect, clear in time again a slightly different approach helped but I think that the bigger jumps made him more careful

Cross country was big and technical but he coped with it all with a minor blip at one fence that seemed to cause problems to many it was an apparently innocuous 'rabbit hutch' a bounce stride from a sunken road. Emma correctly asked him to slow to a bouncy canter but Chucka could not read the jump and seemed to want to fly it so politely stopped, turned away he did it immediately. You can't ensure they have met every hazard before so a valuable lesson in trusting rider

Looking for his next 100 now!
 
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