Me and Mush

The Royal International Horse Show is taking place at Hickstead this week, 26-30 July, and it’s a great event as usual. Dressage at Hickstead are also holding an international event this weekend so the venue is set to be fully packed and if you’re planning to go I would advise you to come early as there will be long queues to get in over the weekend. Make sure you also bring a hat, sun glasses and sun cream to protect yourself as the hot weather is set to continue.

There are classes for all tastes, from elite showing classes with some of the best show horses in the country to a range of showjumping classes that include pony club and novice competitions. Coupled with over a hundred trade stalls and a fun park for small children the event has something for the whole family.

I went on Wednesday to watch the pure bred Arab show class in particular. Nine of the best show Arabs turned up and were judged preliminary in the River Lawn ring in the morning. It was a hot morning for the judge who had to ride them all and she must have had a tough time picking out the placings in the tough competition. All of them looked great and showed themselves off to the best of their abilities. None had a particularly bad time in the ring and the judge managed to get the most of all the horses, which makes the decision so much harder.

There were some excellent extended canter from several horses, Tahir and Toman I thought shone in the gallop, while Malekeiro showed his usual big movements in trot. Al Galero looked the part and didn’t really put a foot wrong but somehow didn’t shine enough for my liking. I’d like to mention Grashakyme, a novice horse in its first big open competion. He did very well, giving the judge a solid ride, and I think he has potential to go far and give the top horses some tough competition in another year or so. I’d also like to mention Grenade, a horse slightly in the shade of others sometimes but who put in an excellent performance in the morning’s ride.

After the preliminary judging in the morning all horses were put forward for the final ride and presentation in the main ring in the afternoon. Riding in the main ring on an Arab has always been my personal dream. You get to dress up in posh jacket and top hat and ride in the international arena with a much larger audience than what we’re normally used to in the ridden Arab show world. Seeing the horses going around all excited gives me goose bumps. They all performed very well in the scary arena, walking, trotting and cantering around all the huge fences. When they had finished showing off the tremendous paces the breed has we were tensely waiting for the final results.

Chestnut stallion Toman got a well deserved first place. Congratulations to owners Auchmillan Arabians and rider Ann Hooley who makes it look like a breeze. He looks like he absolutely loves what he’s doing and his show in the main ring was foot perfect. Grenade took second place with Malekeiro in third, Al Galero in fourth and Grashakyme in fifth. Sixth went to Silver Lil, seventh to Tahir, eighth to Mahradi and ninth to Red House Zinderella.

We were then treated to the one of the best laps of honours I’ve ever seen. All the horses did their usual excited canter around with Ann and Toman deciding to do another lap in full out gallop! What a treat for the audience – we loved it!

I’m looking forward to Saturday now and the part bred and anglo Arab classes. More to come here from Hickstead after that! Oh, and yes, more shopping…

I’ve had some more news today about Shah’s past. It’s exciting! He apparently raced in the mid nineties and did very well, winning several races. This was a real surprise and twist in the tale!

I’ve also been sent some lovely pictures of two more of his offspring that are doing really well on the endurance circuit so I’m really pleased that his genes carry through some good performances.

Knowing that he was raced has answered a question in my mind about his canter. He’s never been good cantering and I’ve struggled for years to get him to go in some sort of outline while cantering. He’s still not truly got the hang of it but at least it’s getting a lot better. He can also get a bit funny thinking about the canter so it’s always seemed to be something about it that stresses him out and now I know why!

We were talking in the yard the other day about potentially taking the horses to a nearby race track and go for a gallop. You can book a slot for you and your horse at Lingfield Park during certain times and it would be such fun to see if they all enjoy it. But knowing about his racing background has made me think twice, maybe he would react negatively, we don’t know if he actually enjoyed it or not? So I may need to think about that some more.

The more I find out the more I feel honoured to piece together his history. It’s a checkered past but it’s turning out to be an interesting story and I’m pleased to have the opportunity to create the next chapter in his life. At least he’ll now stay where he is for the rest of his life.

A tummy bug unfortunately stopped me from posting here for the past few days as I spent most of that time in bed feeling rather yucky. But I’m back on my legs now!

We did a local show last weekend. Just for practice and experience really. I wasn’t going to do any competitions once I started with natural horsemanship as I wanted our relationship to mature and for him to start trusting me more before we took on the world. But sometimes it’s just nice to get out and about a bit, meet others and have a good time.

So we decided to have a go at the Horsham District Riding Club show last Saturday. I wasn’t really nervous as I had already decided this wasn’t a competition and I was just going for the fun of it so didn’t care about placings and rosettes. I think that must have rubbed off on Shah, yes he was excited as usual but he also performed much better. Let me tell you how it went – well, I have to because I was pleased as punch!

It was a lovely sunny day with just enough clouds on the sky to give us some shade and a wind to cool us a bit. Still hot under the collar in a tweed jacket, boots, hat and gloves, but bearable. The show was held at Eastlands Farm in Warninglid which is a beautiful venue, right in front of the big house. The ground was not great, it’s on a slope and the grass fields were quite rutted after the rains. It felt worse in warm up areas than in the ring though.

We had entered two classes, ridden pure bred Arabs and small ridden veterans (as Shah is only 15hh we just squeezed into this category saving us from competing against the large old hunters) and the first class soon got going after we arrived. It was a massive class with 11 entries, you would normally only expect about 4 or 5 entries, possibly 6, but 11 is a HUGE turnout. And there were some lovely horses in the class so I was perfectly ok with being pulled in 9th after the initial ride.

For those of you who don’t know what happens during a show (this was a local show but they had arranged for qualified Arab judges to judge which is great) you basically all walk, trot and canter around the ring as a group in both directions. Then the judge make a preliminary judging, placing you in the order she thinks you deserve after the initial ride. You then get off your horse, the judge rides it, again walk, trot and canter in both directions and then gives it back to you. You then have to remove the saddle, polish the horse up a bit if he’s sweaty and do what’s called the conformation part. This means standing your horse up in front of the judge so she can look around and make sure he’s correct, you then walk and trot him while running next to him so she can look at his gaits (movement) and you then go back to your line up. After that’s all done you are then asked to get back on your horse and walk around as a group again while the judge decides the final placings and you’re then called in accordingly.

We’re used to being down the line. One of Shah’s problems that we are working on is being tight, nervous and not enough forward going. But on this occasion he gave the judge a really good ride. He did everything she asked for, albeit a little tight and nervous, but that was still more than what a lot of the other horses did. So I was absolutely chuffed when I was pulled in 4th in the end!!!!

Fourth place, that’s the best we’ve ever done and in such a big field, plus with professional judges, I was over the moon to say politely. Apparently we were beaming from cheek to cheek!
So I just had to let you all know about it. Oh yes, we then succeeded in coming third in a much smaller (6 horses) veteran class and I was happy about that too. All in all, a very good day!

No, I’m still not competing, just going out there having fun – maybe that’s the key to success, not taking it too seriously?!

This story starts six years ago when Shah’s current owners were told by a friend that there is a sad looking Arab standing on his own in a field nearby. He’s due to be put down as he bit a girl in her face and is therefore deemed dangerous. They went to take a look and just couldn’t let such a good looking Arab go to waste so early in life. Shah was then 10 years old.

We don’t know much about his earlier life more than he was a stud stallion for 9 years (we think) and then gelded and backed to become a ‘nice riding horse’. But somewhere things went wrong. When he came to the current owners he spent much of his time shivering, being frightened and aggressive. They did a great job calming him down, settle him back into normal horse life and giving him lots of tender care to try and get some life back into him. He was now trained for in-hand Arab showing and did really well with a third place at the nationals, but he never really got anywhere with his ridden work.

Enter me. I was looking for a nice horse to share, ride a few times a week, do a few local competitions with a generally have a good time with. Shah is stabled close to where I live, there is a great sand school in the yard and we have ok hacking facilities. Great I thought, it doesn’t matter he is a head shaker, swishes his tail when groomed, very head shy and unbalanced. I’m sure we can sort that out in a while. How wrong was I!

Cutting a horse late (at 9 years old) is not a good thing. To back them at the same time as being gelded is even worse. This leaves emotional scars unless treated well at the time. Well, Shah was not treated well for much of his previous life with the current owners. We know he must have been beaten around the head. He hates whips. He doesn’t like to be touched, saddled or rugged. He has his ears backwards a lot. He bites and nibbles. He rears when you work with him on the ground. He bucks when you ride him if he’s not comfortable. He shakes his head when you ask him to do something he doesn’t like. He is very lazy in the school, he’s tight, unbalanced, shaped like a banana, hollow and doesn’t want to engage his hindquarters.

But boy can he move if he wants to impress. He has the most amazing airborne trot, even when you ride him, when he wants to. He pulls the funniest faces and is the most expressive horse I’ve ever come across. How many horses do you know who can twist their tounge around your finger while still munching on their bit! He has the lovliest big expressive eyes, wonderful long tail and mane (someone had pulled his mane in the past – can you believe it, pulled an Arabs long mane, how much do you think that would have hurt him, imaging someone pulling your long hair out!!!) and there is a very gentle and sensitive air about him, when he’s in a good mood. He can be extremely gentle and sensitive to your aids when you ride. And I just know that there’s a wonderful ridden horse lying underneath all his thorns that will turn into a prince once uncovered!

But he’s just as often called ‘the grumpy old man’. Nobody really likes him. He used to be bullied in the field by the other horses. But he’s getting better and it’s this journey that i’d like to document in this blog.

We have good days and bad days. We had a few of the bad days last week but yesterday I thought I saw another glimmer of hope.