Horse Life Stories - Bertie

Hello again folks, here is another of my 'horse life stories', this time its all about Bertie and his amazing quest!









Love Pilgrim x

Bertie was born in 1999 and is now 17 years old.  He's a piebald cob gelding and he stands at 14.1 hands high. Piebald is horsey phrase; it just means Bertie is black and white.

Bertie

Before Bertie lived here at Calvert Trust Exmoor he had quite an exciting life; he was imported from Ireland as a youngster and lived in the Welsh hills at Plas Equestrian. 

When Bertie was old enough he started his training to be a riding horse, training alongside the endurance horses at Plas Equestrian. This training made him the perfect horse for Bertie’s first adventure!

His rider Becky had always dreamed of travelling internationally by horse back.  Becky planned a trip that was not only going to be great fun but also raise money for a wonderful charity.  The route was London to Tokyo, covering 15 countries, 15,000 miles and lasting for 4 years! 

Bertie and Becky

On April 1st 2009 Bertie an Becky set off from London, sometimes sleeping under the stars, sometimes stopping off with people along the way who had heard of the wonderful adventure Becky and Bertie was on. By the fourth week they had made it to France, and with a few ups and downs they travelled through France, stopping off to explore the local areas. They even managed to visit Belgium via a a slight unplanned de-tour!

By week 18 they had travelled 1,083 miles and had been staying in Besançon, North East France for a couple of weeks.  Becky  had a slight re-think, and now wasn’t planning to ride the whole way, she decided to convert a cart into a caravan.

Whilst staying in Besançon Bertie learnt how to pull a carriage, and soon they were ready to set off on the next stage of the trip.

By the 25th week they arrived in Switzerland, having  completed 1,526 miles. On their travels through Switzerland they encountered some horrible weather, so rather than carrying on Becky and Bertie set up camp to explore the local area.

By week 29 they had travelled through Switzerland and covered 1,712 miles, but Becky had fallen ill and this was where their journey had to end. Bertie and Becky returned to the UK towards the end of 2009, what an amazing adventure they had both been on.

Bertie joined Calvert Trust Exmoor in the winter of 2010; after a month’s trial to introduce Bertie to his new surroundings and all the new experiences he would face Bertie was ready to work. He was soon becoming a fast favourite with the centre guests and our regular riders.

Although Bertie is now 17 years old he loves to play with the other horses and can quite often be seen winding us all up in the field! He especially loves to play with Milo as he is a youngster and will play back, unlike some of the others who get a bit fed up with him!

 Bertie has been here 5 years now and he is wonderful at everything he does, he has given many guests fantastic experiences and we’re sure Bertie will be here for many years to come, making people smile.

Pilgrim's horseshoe icon was created by stolkramaker from Noun Project

Horse Life Stories - Hendrix

Hello again, here is another post in my 'horse life stories' series, this time its my stable mate Hendrix.  

love Pilgrim

Just like Rooster and Brin, Hendrix also had a different name before he joined us here at Calvert Trust Exmoor.

Poor old Hendrix is actually called ‘One too many’, but he says he prefers his Calvert Trust name and I think I agree!

Hendrix is 9 years old (he was born in 2006) and is a traditional gypsy Vanner pony, standing at 13.2 hands high. 

He's black in colour and has a big white blaze down his face. The other distinguishing thing about Hendrix is he has different coloured eyes, one is blue and the other is dark brown. The name for a blue eye in a horse is a wall eye and it certainly makes him stand out.

Hendrix grew up in Worcestershire on a working farm so from a young age he has always had lots going on around him.  He was broken to ride and drive at the age of 3, doing lots of hacking around the farm and pulling a small cart up to the village. This was all good earl experience for Hendrix, ready to carry on with the rest of his training when he got a little older.

At 4 years old Hendrix came to live at Calvert Trust Exmoor, after a month’s trial he officially joined the team in March 2011.  Although Hendrix could already be ridden and pull a carriage he had to start lots of new training to get him used to life here at the stables.

The job Hendrix needed to do the most was to be a driving pony so the stables staff started off by long reining and lunging with Hendrix to get him used to his surroundings and a bit fitter; its quite hilly round here compared to farm he grew up on!  

Hendrix then progressed on to carriages, starting with the 2 wheel carriage, and showed that he could work well with guests.  He also started to do lots of ridding, bringing a bit of variety to his life.  Now Hendrix is the main carriage horse here; he can pull either of the carriages and does lots of riding too.

This year Hendrix has also done a bit of extra work away from the stables. For his first outing he went to try his hoof at dressage at a local show, we were all very impressed as Hendrix and Kerri came away with a first rosette!

Hendrix also went on holiday for a few nights to Devon County Show where we were 2015 charity of the year, each day Hendrix and a team of instructors put on demonstrations to the public in a big arena, showing everyone what we do here in our centre group sessions. They took the four wheeled carriage and demonstrated wheelchair accessible carriage driving.

Hendrix in action at Devon County Show 2015

Hendrix is quite a character and loves to play with the other horses in the field, he can also be a little cheeky in the stable and bang the door with his hoof if he wants some attention or thinks he needs feeding again! Hendrix is a huge favourite here and a very special member of our team.

Pilgrim's horseshoe icon was created by stolkramaker from Noun Project

Horse Life Stories - Rooster

Hello again, here is another one of my horse life stories series, giving you a bit of an insight into the life history of one of my stable mates. This time its Rooster.  

love Pilgrim 

He's known as Rooster here at Calvert Trust Exmoor, but when he was born in 1994 he was called "Lively Lord". at 21 years old he is the oldest horse here! He’s chestnut coloured and stands at 16.2hh. Rooster is a Thoroughbred which means he was bred for racing.

Rooster in our indoor arena

Rooster's life here is a lot quieter than his previous job, as he was a race horse. He was born in County Down in Ireland.

He raced his first race when he was 4 years old, his trainer was Mr R Ferguson, and Mr B R Hamilton was the jockey and they finished 5th! He continued to race in Ireland both on the flat and over hurdles for another couple of years.

In 2000 Rooster was bought over to England and lived in Kent.  He continued to race point to point, and had some success, winning his first outing at Godstone and his second Penshurst. He continued to race for another 8 years; his last race was on the 27th January 2008.

At the age of 14 Rooster retired from racing, he had worked hard and needed a bit of a quieter life.  He was very lucky and landed on his feet in a private home on Dartmoor, where Rooster and his new owners enjoyed hours of hacking through the beautiful countryside. Rooster says he loved this as he could still have a gallop and stretch his long legs! 

In 2013 Calvert Trust Exmoor was looking for a new horse to come and join the stables team. Rooster’s owners saw the advert and thought this would be the perfect job for him. After a month long trial Rooster officially joined our team; we are very lucky to have Rooster as he is on long term loan to us, and we really appreciate his owners lending him to us.

Rooster is a huge favourite here, not just with staff but the guests too; it’s not every day you can say you've ridden a race horse! Rooster does a lot less galloping now but still loves to work, so he gets a wide variety of different riders.

He is especially good for people who need to ride a narrower horse, he is used in lessons for guests staying at the centre and for private lessons, and he is even trained as a hoist horse.

This requires the horse to stand and be very patient for a long period of time (what a huge contrast to the start of his carer!). This year Rooster has even had a go at doing dressage, he was very good and even won a rosette, although he did get a little excited when he was warming up with lots of horses he didn't know. Perhaps he thought he was going racing again!

Rooster loves being out with the other horses and chases any new horses around to show them who's boss! We hope Rooster stays here with us for many years to come.

Pilgrim's horseshoe icon was created by stolkramaker from Noun Project

Horse Life Stories - Brin

Hi folks its Pilgrim here! sorry it's been a while since my last post, I've been super busy with our lovely guests!

I thought you might like to find out a bit more detail about my friends in the stables, so I'm going to write a series of posts, one for each of them.

Here's the first one, about my friend Brin;

Brin (or should that be Picasso?)

Despite being known to all his friends here as Brin, he is actually neither Welsh, nor called Brin! He was born in 2005, at Lionheart Stud in Warwickshire, and his name is really Picasso.

Brin’s colour is bay roan, his father was a lemon and white stallion and his mother was a piebald mare. He stands at 16.1hh, which means he is 16 hands and 1 inch high. 

Just in case you don't know horses are measured from the ground to the top of the withers, which is the ridge between a horse's shoulders. A hand is equivalent to 4 inches, so Brin is 65 inches high (5 ft 5 inches, or 165 cm).

Brin was bought from Lionheart stud as a foal, and brought to live in sunny Devon by his owner Rosie.  He grew up on a quiet farm just down the road from Calvert Trust Exmoor where he lived with his 2 best friends Cloud and Dandy who were both Shetland ponies like me!  No wonder we are such good friends.

He was broken to ride and drive when he was 4 year old, and has always been very gentle and laid back, possibly a little too laid back at times!

Brin joined us here at Calvert Trust Exmoor in 2012. To start with he came on a 6 month loan, but he got on so well with all us that the stables staff arranged to buy him, and he's been with us ever since.

Brin is not the tallest horse here but he most certainly has the biggest build, he’s a gentle giant!  He's great at helping lots of different people here; mainly during lessons for centre guests as he’s very steady.  Brin is also trained as a hoist horse as he’s so laid back and patient; this is one of Brin’s favourite jobs as he gets to stand still! 

Brin also loves to go out hacking in the woods; although he’s a big horse he can be a bit of a wimp sometimes especially when it comes to tractors! 

Although he is trained for carriage driving Brin doesn't do any driving here as he’s too big to fit in our carriage, but sometimes he gets to harrow the riding arenas to make them level. Brin tells me he enjoys doing this as its a different challenge to just been ridden and is another way of keeping him fit and healthy. 

As well as being my big friend Brin is also very friendly with Teddy; being so laid back he actually gets along well with all the other horses and ponies here. He's a very special member of the team and has given lots of people a great riding experience. I hope Brin is able to keep doing his job here for many years to come. 

Come on August, what are you playing at?!?

I'm not quite sure what the weather is doing at the moment, it’s meant to be summer but we seem to be having more than our fair share of rain!

Come on August, what are you playing at?

The stable staff have been busy sorting out all our winter rugs; they had to be sent away to be cleaned, re-proofed and some even had to be repaired.

I've spotted my rug being hung up in the rug room looking all clean and ready for me to wear for the winter months, but with all the rain that we are having I might need mine sooner rather than later.

I really. really don’t like getting wet; I am very little and get a lot colder than the bigger horses, but the good news is I'm sharing a field with Teddy at the moment and he's very good to shelter behind!

The only good thing about all this rain is it's helping the grass to grow, which means we all have lots of lovely fresh growth to eat at night after a hard day at work with our lovely guests.

New Tooth

Hi everyone it’s your favourite pony Pilgrim, here to let you know what has been happening at the Calvert Trust Exmoor Stables.

Do you remember me telling you about Milo, one of our newer horses here? Well he is now 6 years old and to celebrate being 6 he's had a new tooth come through. This new tooth is called a canine, but it's nothing to do with dogs!

A female horse has 40 teeth and male horse has 42, this is because a male horse has two extra canine teeth. The front teeth are called incisors, these are the teeth that do the biting and the back teeth are called molars which are the teeth that do the chewing.

Although it’s normal for male horses to grow canine teeth (they use them in the wild for fighting) it meant that lucky Milo got a few days off in the sunshine to allow time for the new teeth to come through.

Milo

Welcoming New Volunteers

This week we welcomed some new volunteers to the stables.  As you probably know, we always need volunteers to help us with the riding and carriage driving sessions for our guests here at Calvert Trust Exmoor.

When new volunteers first start they need to do some training with the horses and staff so that they know what they will need to be able to do to help our guests.  The volunteers will learn how to groom a horse, tack up a horse, lead a horse with a rider on and side walk with a horse. 

Some of our volunteers also learn how to help with the carriage driving.  For this they learn about how to harness up and help to put the horse to the carriage.  They also learn how to be a carriage groom which can involve holding the horse still while the driver and guests get in the carriage. They also learn about standing on the back step of the carriage, which is called back stepping, while driving is taking place.  This is a very important job as the back stepper will help to balance the carriage while it is going along.

Our new volunteers this week had a training session with Alice.  They met Brin and Bertie and learnt how to tack up and lead them.  Once they were happy leading the horse Alice got on Brin to show them how they can help a rider. 

Lots of our guests have never ridden a horse before so having a leader who is confident is very helpful for them. Side walking is another important job which our volunteers learnt about during the session.  This is helpful to support riders who may need a bit of extra help. 

By the end of the session our new volunteers had learnt lots about the horses and ponies here at Calvert Trust Exmoor. Two of them even put their names down to come and help with a centre group the very next day!  I am certainly looking forward to getting to know them a little better, I am sure they are dying to meet me.