The moment a baby pony offers an out of this world adult pace = bliss.
A friend has been riding Rory to give Pait company out hacking. Pait is adament she doesn't need a babysitter and spends most of the time leading lol. But today we did a new (to Pait) and longer ride so coming home she followed Rory. Decided to canter down one of the tracks and can I just say WOW she's quite balanced and slow in her canter but usually its quite long strided and lopey. But following Rory who has a much shorter stride and goes a lot slower without my electric bum :-p she shortened balanced and dropped into an outline but the sheer power of it was amazing. It's not often I'm stunned but I pulled up at the end in amazement with a huge grin on my face. This is what backing babies is all about for me.
My only slight bugbear with her at the moment is she is using burrs as mane and tail accessories which I dont really appreciate.
No pics from today but have a pic of our first "attempt" at a jump from Tues.

2 days of soggy rides

Yesterday I went to Escrick with another livery K to do a pleasure ride. Her mum had very kindly offered to drive their 3.5t box, came to load and poor Rory was flumoxed- "err mum how am I meant to get into there" 2 attempts at positioning him correctly later we were loaded and away. Got to Escrick with a very fine persistant rain. Well the ponio did good he kept his cool and behaved impeccably even when Twink and K went over the jumps that he really wanted to do but wasn't allowed. We did 10miles of th 15mile ride and decide to call it a day as we were close to the start. Both ponies had behaved and we were rather wet by this point, so we headed back with a little play in the water complex (aka large muddy puddle with logs :-p )
Today I'd roped someone else into riding Rrory so he could babysit Pait out hacking. Just did a quick ride as it was throwing it down again but I had an ace ride with Pait leading a few trots and a canter along the stubble. We came back through the village meeting a small child in an electric toy car followed by his mother attached to another small child and pram. Both ponies looked but went by, Rory marched rather determindly up to it though! Then got into the village proper to discover it was primary school kicking out time cure lots and lots of brightly coloured umbrellas and a road resembling a cross between a dodge-em track and the M62. Luckily both dales stayed on best behavour and we arrived back in the yard in 1 soggy piece.
Pait was giving Rory such evil looks on the ride though and did leg yeild to stop him coming alongside on the stubble. Such love they have for each other- not.

Some days are just nice horsey ones.
I had Duke in to play with as I'm currently practising his showring stand lol. It is easy when the human has a pocketful of chopped carrot says Duke. I also bought a proper measuring stick today and measured all 3 dales who were good as gold and not bothered at the spooky stick.
Duke is currently 13.3 and a half at 2 years old unshod.
Rory is 14hh and half an inch in shoes at 7 years old.
Pait is 14.1hh unshod at 4 years old.
All of them appear much taller than they actually are as barring Rory they are good chunks lol. Rory is starting to fill out but still on the slender side when compared to the other 2.
I then rode Rory out with YM on her showjumper and he mostly behaved but did try to launch teddy out of cot when I said no to jogging by the duck sheds.
I gave Pait a quick lunge in the field then tacked up and went down the road with Em on Bex. Bex is not a good babysitter at 20 so it's good Pait is well behaved. Trot and a couple of sneaky canters behind Bex in the stubble field as Bex was doing extended trot and at 16.2 her legs are a lot longer than Paits.

Rory has dapples this winter after his clip!

Preparing ponios for winter

Well after an ace sunday looking round the adamfield and castlehill dales ponies stud. It's back to the grindstone and I have to sadly say I started winter prepartions today.
Rory was clipped much to his disgust and I tried a new clip taking it down to knees and hocks yet blending it in by clipping with the hair (tip thanks to another Dales pony owner) so hopefully I won't end up with 2-tone legs when it starts moulting out. I really wanted the clip for pait as roans go weird colours when clipped but sacrificed Rory as guineapig. Rory also had his ears fully off as he can't stand then getting sweaty and is horrid to ride when he gets ratty. He does look a bit unusual as the rest of his head is still furry. :-p
After clipping was bath and rug time and I must say Rory has some amazing dapples this year so the linseed and codliver oil is doing something!
Pait came in at tea time with mud in her tail and feathers so the pig oil has also come out and she is plastered in the stuff as getting mud balls out of Dales hair is not a task I like. I do get weirdlooks though as I use a leg paste which I apply with a paint brush much to the amusement of other liveries.

2 ponios to ride now. Days off or half days this is fine but I'll need to have a bit of a think about evenings after work as we don't have lights in the arena and it's getting dark earlier now. Pait I do want to keep in decent work this winter, I need to find a hacking buddy and start getting her out. Rory really needs to be ridden as many days as poss (in the ideal world 6 days a week) due to his joints. Still only hacking with him and I had considered asking a friend to ride him a couple of times a week but I've got an issue in him and Pait share a saddle. Also he was horrid to hack on monday in company and I'd worry about anyone else being on him in that situation as you have a very fine line between not giving in to him and taking pressure off when he works himself up so much or he'd go vertical. Having been on him as a youngster and going over backwards with him I know how in tune I have to be. It's not an easy situation.
Hacked him today with the same horse and he was perfect cantered collected behind and didn't throw a strop about jogging on the way home. So I'm really torn what to do.
Rory has his third and final lot of shockwave on Thursday so fingers crossed he's finally right. I do need to clip him and tackle fitness and core strength with him this winter though.