Dickens Diary - April 2008

April has been a mixed month, what with the weather fluctuating from sun shine to showers and temperatures refusing to settle into a steady pattern - this has resulted in Deekies work programme becoming a little interrupted.

We started the month off with the usual walking on the horse walker, Lunging, hacking and Schooling. Deekie being a very sensitive flower, (with white socks and thin skin) had a slight bit of mud fever on one of his socks (3 small scabs!) - This however was enough to justify him taking 4 days off to recover. What a mummys boy.

During the middle of the month John, Deekie, the girls and I all went off to West Sussex to the T.T.T. for 2 days of training with one of their National Trainers. The two days of training were fantasic, the atmosphere was relaxed and Deekie settled into his new surroundings instantly, the Instructors were friendly and approachable and the training sessions were truely amazing. After our first day of training we all sat down and discussed our sessions, this was a really useful exercise as we all kept coming back to the basic scales of training whether we were training young horse like mine or a more advanced horse, the problems that occurred during that weekend in all of the sessions were very similar - either a straightness issue or engagement/ thoroughness issue.

Wil Miflin came over to New Barn towards the end of the month and we had our 1st x - country lesson, we kept to fairly easy fences like, ditches, coffins, ski jumps, rails e.t.c. and we even introduced the drop fence to Deekie. Initially Deekie found this fence very intimidating but after watching Wil jump off it a few times Deekie took the plunge - making the drop look very easy and small! I now need to learn to sit to his jump - easier said than done!!

At the end of the month mum and I took Deekie off to Bourton on the Water and hired an arena with a full set of scarey show jumps. Deekie was a star, jumping fences and combinations of fences that he had never seen before. Mum suggested that at the end of the session we jump through the course of fences that were all set at about 1 metre in height. Although we have a lot of home work to do I am extremely proud of my boy with not only the progress that he is making but the enjoyment that he is getting out of his work.

Watch out for my next installment........

To find out more about the excellent facilities and services offered by Jonathan, Director of Equisea and his partner Kelly at New Barn Equine, a Livery, Training, Rehabilitation and Therapy centre situated in Chedworth, Cirencester in Gloucestershire, please click on this link.