Monday 16 July 2012

Homogeneity in French riding - a GOOD thing!

In France, like most if not all sports, riding/equestrianism is organised at a national level, and teaching and standards are nationally organised. Like many english, I often find things "over-organised" here compared to the UK, which sometimes makes me wonder if the approach doesn't take all the individuality out of riding style and the fun too. However, what it does do is mean that you KNOW the standard of a rider according to their "official" level (or Galop - levels 1-7 at riding clubs, more in September). This is a good thing if you haven't ridden with somebody before. For example, this weekend there was a family from Normandy staying in the village, with their very bored, but horse-mad 12-year-old daughter. I invited her to come to the club with me to help me feed the horses, and because I knew her level I offered her a ride on la belle May, knowing that she would be able to manage her. Also, I found it really interesting that when she trotted, she did exactly the same as the kids at our club do - she held on to the mane with her inside hand and used her outside rein independently to control the speed and to keep the horse on the piste. I had never seen this technique in the UK (although I am very out of date) but seeing it used by somebody from a completely different region was cool, actually, and very reassuring. It means at the least that somebody trained by official riding teachers in France can ride at the correct level anywhere in France. So if they go pony trekking for example, they can immediately be given   an appropriate horse for their level and by this be able to enjoy themselves the most. Likewise if they move to a different region they don't need to spend time learning the ropes in a new kind of riding school, they can just continue advancing.

I approve. I am surprised by this as usually I like things to be as idiosyncratic as possible, but for me it works. 


Thursday 12 July 2012

Leather tack vs synthetic

I have come to the end of my tether when it comes to cleaning tack. When I was a teen I cleaned my leather tack a couple of times a week, in front of the telly. I liked it! After my 30-year break from horse ownership I have come back to it having lost patience with leather. I can't stand the stickiness of the soap and the grease (even though I use nice vegetable-based oil and lovely posh NAF leather cream) or the SMELL! My hands are stinky for ages after I have cleaned everything. And the ages spent putting my leather hackamore back together with ten different tiny keepers (not really ten, but too many, anyway) and the leather wear on the sidepieces because of the weight of the hackamore. Its all too much now - and I am much busier it seems now then when I was 15! I just don't have time. 


When I was in my teens synthetic tack was only just starting to appear in happy hacker/riding club world. I saw my first synthetic saddle then, already cracked and breaking and stiff and cheap-looking after only a few weeks of use. Rubbish. Everybody with any sense sneered at non-leather saddles. Only headcollars could be synthetic, in a small range of colours, green, burgundy, blue and red I think. Likewise saddlecloths and bandages - available in just a small range of very safe colours, and tendon or brushing boots generally in leather too, black or brown only, of course. I remember somebody buying some really "wild" navy blue exercise bandages once!


How things have changed! And all for the better in my view. Technology has moved on, with great new materials produced for industry and other sports (like sailing) being systematically adopted for use in equestrianism. I now use a synthetic saddle - only needs to be wiped over every now and again to keep it in perfect condition - bliss!! My synthetic saddle is adjustable, comfortable, fits my horse well and puts me in a great position. Despite having bought it second-hand from ebay (very cheaply!), it still has years left in it. And the girth straps, which will probably be the first bit to go, can be replaced by the cordonnier in the next village. My girth is synthetic too - so I shove it under the tap after every ride, making it much less likely that my mare will get girth galls compared to with a rarely-cleaned leather one. 


My saddle is black, but it doesn't need to be any more - the new synthetic materials come in any colour you want - from classic black and brown to neon pink or orange, if you like. Your horse can have multi-coloured bridles and matching martingales - red, white and blue, for example, is popular. Most saddles are still black or brown but other colours are available. The most important thing about the new materials is how easily cleanable they are. The endurance world has adopted the new tack with a will - as one high-level endurance-riding friend said to me "you just chuck it all in the washing machine after a comp to clean it". Or just shove it under the tap after a ride. Now that is my kind of tack cleaning. 


As for all the accoutrements - headcollars, saddlecloths, bandages etc - these are also now available in a rainbow of colours, and in fact in rainbow pattern too. While I stick to classic colours, my daughter rides with bright pink brushing boots and matching saddlecloth, it looks fantastic, I have to admit. Her neoprene-lined (i.e. lovely quality) headcollar is studded with "diamonds" - it looks great! I have seen fetlock and tendon boots to die for - tartan, leopard-spot print, zebra-striped and any colour you can think of. All with matching saddlecloths. Yum. 


So right now, as I traipse off to clean my leather bridle yet again and spend a couple of days with stinky hands, I think it is time for that biothane synthetic bridle I saw on ebay...







Friday 6 July 2012

Gymkhana!

The gymkhana was brilliant - I couldn't practice because my back was so bad but I took lots of ibuprofen and stuff and was ok. There were 32 riders in two groups, beginner and not beginner. As usual with these competitions at the club, I was the only adult. I am truly reliving my youth these days. 


One of the ados rode too, on a comtois mare - that was something to see! Each group had to do a course in the fastest time with no faults. The beginners course involved a little slalom, going round a barrel, under a bar without touching it, ringing a bell and picking up a cup. Our group ( I really hoped F, one of the monitrices, would allow me to go with the babies but she wouldn't!) had to do much the same except with more turns, two jumps and picking up the cup with one hand, putting it under the neck of the horse, then going round a barrel and putting the cup back on a pole. 


May was brilliant, she went off into canter from walk every time and on the right leg each time too. Our only problem was that she did her new shock reaction at the sight of an obstacle. She did this at our first le trec competition too and both then and yesterday I very nearly fell off as she jumped about six feet sideways at the sight of a (very tiny) jump like she had never seen one before! Given that she normally accelerates at jumps it is always very unexpected. However, I did manage to stay on and we carried on much better. But I rode about 15th out of 20 and I realised that there was one part where you could go very fast so we cantered quickly and then the kids after me all did the same and beat me hollow on their shetlands and little ponies (nippier than my fjord!!). 


But of course it was all only for fun and it really was! May is so super brilliant, we had great fun and we got a rosette too! 

Monday 2 July 2012

My back is out!!

I had to make a flying visit to the UK last week and both ways by train plus dragging luggage about has put my back out. It is still the same nagging lower back problem caused when I had a bad fall from my gypsy cob mare, now nearly two years ago. The problem is that we have the annual gymkhana at our club on Wednesday and I am competing against the extremely capable children at the club with the beautiful new mare, May (see the pic) and I need to practice! They are all going to beat me anyway but it would be nice to give the kids a bit of competition!


Osteopath this afternoon - hopefully that will sort it out so I can practice tomorrow. 

Sunday 1 July 2012

hoof oil vs water-based products and frying hooves

Now that the heat has come, my mare's hooves have become very dry and the annual angst about the best hoof products for her has begun. When I was young we used hoof oil and that was that, all year round, but mainly just for competitions. But that was in the UK, ie always damp! Now I have re-started my horse-life after a 20-year break, and here in France, and when I research UK sites, nobody seems to use hoof oil or grease any more, on the basis that it prevents water being absorbed by the hoof and makes it effectively impenetrable. So last year I started using NAF hoof moist but found it didn't go very far. I used aqueous cream too, as a cheaper version but that wasn't very effective either. I have been using REVIVET for cracked hooves as we had some shoeing problems and that was great, until the temperature rose. Now I have bought a huge tub of hoof moist because my pot of green hoof grease has disappeared from the tack room. It seems to be ok with my new mare but you do need to use it a lot. Finally, a weird question has been nagging my brain - if you cover the hoof in oil or grease in hot sunshine, will the hoof wall effectively fry? And if not, why not?

Horse people

There are horse people and non-horse people. I am a horse person. I loved horses from birth. I said the word horse (“horsie”) before I said “mama” or “dada”, I had dozens of horses (imaginary, plastic, furry and hobby) throughout my childhood and happily, real horses came in to my life at an early age and I never looked back.


Gymkhanas, trekking, show jumping, one-day eventing and eventually teaching followed.


I am a horse person. My daughter, too, found her passion for horses - later than me, but no less strong than my own. She too is a horse person, happy just to be near them. My husband, however, is not a horse person. He was first persecuted by equines at the tender age of 9 when he was asked to ride one by his mum, who suggested he go riding with his sister as he might like it. No. He HATED it from the first. He didn’t like anything about it. The horses were big and smelly. They trotted and he bounced painfully on his bottom and the teachers were horrible to him. It was a drab stables in London with nothing attractive about it. He cried. His sister laughed at him. He didn’t go again.

Horses continued persecuting him into his adult life. When walking in the countryside in Wales, where his family had a cottage, he would regularly encounter horses blocking his route, the size of houses (or horses), shuffling their feet in preparation for attack, showing their teeth as they blew flames from their nostrils and looking at him funny. And FOLLOWING him! WHY would they DO that?? He always found a quick escape and would abort his walks if there was no horse-free route. Then he met me, during a period when I wasn’t really doing anything horsey. The poor man. Tricked.  We moved to France and I refound my horse world with a vengeance, and my daughter soon joined me. Now he finds himself a lone artist in a horse-obsessed family, with tack, boots, loose hairs and straw filling every corner of his house and a wife and daughter happy to discuss anything equine at the drop of a (riding) hat. For a while he put his foot down and banned all horse discussions at the dinner table on the basis that it was just too boring (and, speaking as a person who falls asleep at the first mention of perspective, colour, contrast, or anything art, I can sort of see his p.o.v). Then he realised he was fighting a losing battle and did a couple of beautiful drawings and paintings of the family equines (from photos, since he would never go nearer than two or three kilometers from them). Then, about six weeks ago he happened, completely by accident, to find himself inches from my beautiful fjord mare, who shoved her nose at him to introduce herself. 


Automatically, he reached out his hand to stroke her nose and said “hello, May”, before realising what he had done, and backing up fast! Maybe there is a horse person somewhere in all of us?