My rain dance has worked!

My rain dance has worked! The farm was starting to resemble the Aussie outback – no grass and an increasing amount of dust! Whilst the ‘Indian Summer’ that we have been experiencing in the south east has been great for most, it has been a bit of a nightmare for the farming and agricultural community. However, now it hasn’t stopped raining for 48 hours and you can almost see the grass growing. Answers on a postcard as to how long it takes before I start moaning about the miserable English weather though!

Grass is a top priority at the moment and I am turning slightly obsessive about it! We have between 45-50 horses on our 100 acre farm at any one time and it is imperative that the fields and horses are managed properly. At this time of year, with the polocrosse season over, our own playing horses and broodmares are turned out for about five months… hence my obsession with grass – the more there is, the later we can get away with introducing hay and hard feed, which as you know, costs a small fortune! I tend to rotate our young horses so they each get two ‘spells’ of work over the winter – I have four to start, and four others to continue with their education – a couple will probably go hunting with us a few times too!

We are lucky enough to have the best liveries in the world! Not only are they all lovely, but most of them are connected with polocrosse and their horses are very ‘fuss-free’! The majority live out in the winter so we divide up five ten acre paddocks between the liveries and our horses and it is really interesting to see them revert back to the herd animal instincts (although not so great when you have to catch the tricky ones!). I really believe horses need some down time, and although ours have a bit of an extended holiday compared to other disciplines, we look to have them coming out of winter happy, rested, in good condition and ready to go again.

I then have between 10 and 15 ‘Trainers’ on the yard that are in to be started or have some behavioural problem worked on. These horses receive the royal treatment with individual turnout, stabling and lots of attention lavished on them by the girls! I am very fortunate to have incredible staff so I can literally go from horse to horse… it is a tricky feat to fit in 15 horses in the winter days… I still can’t get used to the fact that it is dark more than it is light! I am really enjoying my work this month – I have five lovely colts in amongst them, three of whom I think will be exceptional dressage horses… its times like this I feel very privileged to do what I do! I’ll get some photos of them for the next blog!