Ailbhe is growing up!

This coming weekend I leave NZ for a month in Mexico with my Mum. I may be just a little bit excited. I think however that I am just about as excited at the prospect of riding Ailbhe and that is going to happen very, very soon! I can't believe he is three now and will be four in just a few (7 or so) months. I brought the rotund 'little' chap in today for a bit of a photo shoot and he had his very first bath and a comb run through his gorgeous flaxen mane. The tail needs a little more work tho, haha! He clearly has good Irish genes as he's as fat as butter even after being kept on the side of a dirt hillside for MONTHS in a drought. He would have you think he was starving tho, the way he whinnies at me every time he sees me at the hay barn. I don't give him hay often, I promise, well, not much anyway ...

Here are some of the photos I took:

So, when I get back from Mexico, I am going to just have to climb aboard and get the party started!!

NWPC ODE 2015 - RH Toffee Pop

This weekend Toffee and Louisa competed at the North Wairarapa PC One Day Event in the NZPC80 class. They produced a tidy dressage, which, although not their best work, still gave them a respectable 32.5 penalty points (67.5%) and had them in 5th place after dressage.

Here is their dressage test:

An unfortunate and rather naughty rail in the SJ (Toffee was heading towards the collecting ring and wanted to go there fasssssst) dropped them a placing to 6th.

Here is the show jumping round:

Finally it was time to get busy on the XC. The ground at Solway is like concrete due to the long, hot/dry summer we have just experienced so Louisa was careful not to push Toffee XC and they got around tidily and clear of jump faults with only 3.6 time time faults and a final placing of 7th in a class of 21. You can't say Toffee isn't consistent!! Very happy with her performance!

Here is a wee portion of her cross country round: