A Successul couple of weeks!

Could life get much crazier…? I feel like I haven’t had a sit down in weeks! It has got to the business end of the polocrosse season, with just the National Club Championships left to go on the 28th-30th August at Ashfields Polocrosse Club in Essex. We had an excellent ‘dry run’ at the Midlands Tournament with our club, Kent Target winning the A, B and E divisions. It’ll be a different story come the Nationals, with all the clubs sending out their best sides and no doubt the Highlanders Club, with 5 out of 6 players representing the UK this Summer, will be favourites to take the A Division title. It was also a great party on Saturday night – a wonderful trait of the hosts, Arden Polocrosse Club… shame I managed to fall off the stage after attempting to dance on a speaker. I’m still sore from it!

In my last blog I was stressing about my top horse being out of action with a suspensory injury and that I was going to have to rely on my young horses… well my four year old, Banjo, won Champion Horse! I couldn’t have been more pleased and excited about it. He feels really impressive and now it is all about teaching him the game… Penny is going to play him in the lower divisions and give him a nice time so I can get on him and go hard next year!

This weekend just gone, we held our annual Open Day at the yard. Everyone put in so much effort into making the place look amazing – I was really proud of all the staff. Over 220 people came along and my poor mother-in-law was swamped on the Tea and Cakes stand! I did a series of demos from loading a yearling to starting a young horse and getting a breaker used to traffic. Everything went well, except Diesel, my colt, decided to have different ideas to me when I was doing some ‘at liberty’ groundwork! Still, he worked well in the end and I got what I deserve as I just haven’t had the time to put the work in that he needs… that’s the thing about horses, you never stop learning from them!

Ups and Downs!

Well, I guess I’ve got over the disappointments of losing to South Africa by now! But, the worst thing to come out of it was that Honey, my top mare, has strained her suspensory ligament in her near fore and needs at least six months off… still at least I have a great excuse to breed a foal or two out of her – she is still young enough to bring back into work after that! I have decided to send her down to a young Argentine stallion called Open Maestro, standing at the Beaufort Embryo Transfer Centre. His breeding has really captured my interest as I feel she needs a good dose of Thoroughbred to put a bit more size into her foals… I am sure my stallion, Diesel, will get his chance later on in her breeding career!

Polocrosse differs to polo as you are only allowed to play on one horse for the duration of a weekend competition – this could mean up to nine 6 minute chukkas over a weekend. These horses have to be incredibly fit and tough and we have to look after them like gold dust! Having sold some older horses this year and now losing Honey for the season, I have had to look to the future. Our breeding programme that we started when I moved to England permanently in 2002 is starting to come to fruition… I have a couple of young’uns by Diesel who I am seriously excited about, and I am full of hope for my Australian import, Banjo, who at 4 years old is showing all the talent you could wish for… I am just hoping that they all live up to their promise!

The short lull in polocrosse competitions has allowed me to get stuck back into work with a vengeance! I have twelve clients’ horses in at the moment, mostly for starting but I have a couple of ‘problems’ to sort out too… there was one particularly impressive rodeo performance – I wish I had it on video! I have a stunning Thoroughbred racehorse colt in for starting and a bit of pre-training. He is being syndicated and I must admit, I am sorely tempted… it’s been a little dream of mine to ‘own’ a racehorse over here. My dad breeds racehorses back home and has a scary obsession with bloodlines, so the love of the Thoroughbred is definitely bred in me!

We are also gearing up for our Open Afternoon on 15th August – opening of our new barn and facilities (hmmm, I think we’re going to be up in the middle of the night with a paint brush!), free demos of groundwork (leading and loading), starting a young horse and the Australian Stock Horse. I’m thinking of doing a ‘first ride’ on a breaker in front of everyone… well they do say that fortune favours the brave! See you there?!