Rooster's Showing Off!

A couple of weeks ago Rooster had a visit from Angela, who is a McTimoney chiropractic practitioner. After she had given him some treatment Rooster said he felt much better. He is 20, which is equivalent to about 60 in horse years (don't tell him I told you!); I think he looks great for an old chap! 

Here is a great photo of him showing off a bit; cantering round on the lunge. I hope to be bouncing around myself at that age!

Rooster Showing Off!

I think we must be due to start our Winter break fairly soon. All us horses and ponies get a few weeks off while the centre is closed.  This a great time for us to be out in the fields catching up with all the other horses and ponies who we don’t get turned out with normally. We do all get on and it’s great to get play time together. I will still need to come into my stable at night though because I get cold as I am closer to the ground than most!

Comings and Goings...

Two of the staff are moving onto new green pastures to go and look after other horses, Abi and Louise are both leaving before Christmas.

I am sure that wherever they go next the equines will appreciate the work that I and the other horses here at Calvert Trust Exmoor have put into them; we've got them both very well trained now!

Me telling Abi how to do it

Safari training Louise to use a bareback pad

Because of this there have been a number of new faces coming through the stables recently, and they all come to see yours truly of course! 

I am sure that whoever comes to join us here in the stables will think I am gorgeous; how could they not?!? 

I will soon teach them who the most important pony is, and exactly how we equines like things to be done. There's no point in having humans to care for you if they don’t do things how you like them to be done!

I will make sure I introduce you to the new staff when they arrive.

Cheeky Henry!

Last week we had another visit from our friendly local farriers,you may remember last time I introduced you to Dusty the Farrier? This time we were visited by Clive, who is the boss farrier.

Clive has been a farrier for a long time so he probably knows all there is to know about horses and ponies feet!  It was Clive who came up with the idea of my little plastic shoes, or as the stables staff call them, my 'trainers'!

I am very glad Clive thought of this because they feel great for my tiny feet. Clive is probably very glad too, as they take only a few minutes to put on.

Normal horse shoes take a long time and the farrier has to bend down all the time. This is hard enough with a regular sized horse or pony but imagine how hard it would be to shoe a miniature like me!

Cheeky Henry!

This photo is of Henry having his feet attended to by Clive. As you can see he's very laid back about the whole thing, and likes to rest his chin on the Clive's back while his shoes are being put on! What a lazy, cheeky horse Henry is!

Learning to Drive

Abi has been teaching Kerri how to drive our carriages.

They started with Kerri learning how to hold the reins for carriage driving (which is very different to riding). Bob was chosen to be her first driving pony as he is so patient!

Kerri 'driving' with Bob

 Once she had the reins figured out it was time to hold a long driving whip as well.  This is necessary to help steer a driving horse.

Next Abi radioed Oli to ask if he could come to hold a horse as she was planning to take Kerri out driving with Hendrix.  Oil arrived very quickly and went to hold Bob!  As you can see Bob wasn’t likely to move very far!

Oli 'holding' Bob while Kerri drives!

Once Kerri had the hang of it with Bob she moved on to real horses, Hendrix was very patient with Kerri practicing in the indoor school. 

Driving with Hendrix

things went so well in the indoor arena that they decided to try driving outside in the big arena. 

A 'driver's eye view' of driving with Hendrix!

Kerri held one set of reins and Abi was holding the other set in case she started steering towards the fence! they were still talking to each other when they had finished so I guess it all went very well. 

Hendrix tells me Kerri said she is looking forward to having another go! 

Jack's Feeling Sprightly

Jack has had a haircut!

He's been clipped; Teddy tells me this happens to keep the horses which get ridden and driven a bit more comfortable. They don’t sweat as much and they cool down and dry off quicker when they have finished work.

Jack said he had not been clipped before so it was a new experience for him. Kerri did a lovely job with the clippers though and Jack looks very smart.  However he is now full of beans and bouncing around the place! 

Jack enjoying his haircut

This morning Jack made all the other horses in his field go for a gallop with him. I think he is very proud of himself and how great he looks!  I guess it feels really nice to have a good haircut.  Nicky says I don’t get clipped because apparently I don’t work hard enough. Huh! how dare she!

This week we have had some lovely young people staying here from Petroc, which is the local college. We met some of them yesterday and this afternoon we will meet the rest. 

Yesterday’s groups did really well with their riding and also groomed Bertie, Duchess and Jack.  I then had a great time with them doing my agility course.  I was feeling great yesterday and even showed them how I can jump onto one of my obstacles. They all seemed to agree that I was terrific!

Dressage Test

Our guests did lots of riding and carriage driving this weekend, and on Sunday they had a go at a dressage test. 

Henry, Teddy and Brin were chosen to take part and they were made to look very smart, having their manes and tails plaited and muddy bits washed. Two of our lovely volunteers also tried the dressage test. Everyone got judged on their riding skills by Nicky who sat up in the gallery to watch what was happening. At the end of the day everyone had a rosette and certificate to take home with them. 

Brin having a little snack before his big moment!

One of our guests this weekend used to work with race horses. He rode Brin this weekend; I think Brin was a bit worried he might ask him to gallop round the arena! Brin is not too keen on going fast, luckily for him the dressage test only involved walking and trotting! I would not have been the only one amazed if Brin had suddenly decided to show a burst of energy, he's definitely built for comfort not for speed!

The weather is certainly starting to change here at Calvert Trust Exmoor. It has been quite a bit colder and rainy this weekend. I think I will soon be tucked up in my lovely warm stable every night, I can't wait for that.

We are all going out in the fields wearing our waterproof rugs again now. Needless to say we have rolled as much as we can to make them all nice and dirty!  Ah the joys of being a pony......

Horse Weekend and Spooky Goings On!

This weekend we had some visitors to the stables on a horse weekend. All the centre had been decorated with spooky stuff so us horses and ponies were feeling a little left out. However we soon realised that two of us had been chosen to join in the fun, myself and Duchess were decorated to look like skeleton horses!

Nicky got some chalk and we had all of our bones drawn on us! Duchess kept turning round to look at herself while she was being drawn on. I am quite sure she thought she looked fabulous!

Skeletal Horses!

Our visitors then watched us in the arena, as we moved around they could see which bones were moving which part of us. I decided to play a trick of my own though and had a lovely roll. This rubbed all the chalk off so Nickys hard work was no longer visible! Ha Ha!!!

Rolling around

 Hendrix was then allowed to come into the arena to play with us. He must have felt a bit left out because he tried to design his own outfit using a cone! Duchess was not impressed by this but i thought it looked like a good game and tried a cone on for size too.

Hendrix's Cone Costume!