The Horseworld Charity in Bristol does a marvellous job rescuing and retraining horses, ponies and donkeys. Intelligent Horsemanship has been involved in training the staff in the most effective techniques, with Recommended Associates giving their time to help this worthy charity. On May 19th, 2012, it’s my turn, and I will be holding a day-long demonstration looking at groundwork and ridden issues and skills.

I’ll be working for several hours with a very wide variety of horses and riders, helping them to improve not only “problems” but also “ordinary” issues like how to achieve a better seat or get their horses more forward, moving laterally or stopping better.

I’ll also be signing copies of Whispering Back and Born to Whisper, the books he co-authored with RA Nicole Golding, all profits of which they are donating to HorseWorld.

A raffle will be held for a FREE LESSON at our gorgeous yard here at Moor Wood in the Cotswolds- again, all profits to HorseWorld.

The demo is FREE to anyone who visits HorseWorld on the day, paying the standard (exceptional value at less than £8 per head) entry fee- see www.horseworld.org.uk for details.

Date: SAT 19 MAY
Time: 11 AM – 5 PM
Venue: HorseWorld, Whitchurch, Bristol BS14 0QJ

COME AND HELP US SUPPORT THIS OUTSTANDING EQUINE CHARITY

I’m really looking forward to this, and hope to see you there!

Adam Goodfellow

Amber’s month’s trial is now over, and she has now actually, completely, properly been sold. We miss her enormously. We were a bit concerned about how she would settle in, though, and she also showed some worrying unlevelness behind during her month away. She’s nearly 17 years old, and although low mileage, concerns were raised by various vets about her potential long-term soundness. What they don’t know about her, of course, is that she is as tough as old boots. She was clearly irritated by the attention paid to her imperfect movement. After treatment and appropriate work,  she massively improved and we’re sure she’ll be fine.

Far from struggling to settle in, she loves her new home. I didn’t think she was at all bored at Moor Wood, but she seems to be enjoying the change!

The ponies that we were hoping to have on livery might well not be coming now, but a business meeting with our web consultant has clarified what we already knew: we would love a few more liveries. We’re very much enjoying working with the ones we do have, and there’s a lovely buzz about the place now. It’s great to have regular, ongoing clients, and it means we’re more of a “centre” – for learning, support, inspiration and fun!

We’ve decided to do fewer clinics this year, too. The clinics take up a lot of school time and energy, and while they’re on we really can’t do much else. As soon as the teaching day ends, we need to catch up with our little people. With liveries, Intensives, and regular lessons, we still get to help clients with their horses and their learning, but in a more sustainable way.

Yard-wise, the horses are still in bank Field, but will be moving soon. They won’t have had quite 3 months out there, and it does seem like an expensive luxury sometimes to keep renting 12 acres that spends so much of its year resting. I wouldn’t like to be the one to explain to the horses that we’d decided to economise, and that they’d have to cope with a muddy alternative! Of course, our hay bill would go up, but definitely still less than the rent. But winter is hard enough without hock-deep mud, and I’m sure the horses appreciate it, in their own way.

My winter project to sort out all the fencing hasn’t quite happened yet. It’s a big job. Much re-wiring is needed, and I’m trying to come up with clever, innovative ways to accommodate the changes we regularly make. There’s talk of droughts already, so like last year March might be a wonderful time to ride, and we can indulge our habit of worrying about the hay situation, early!

Well, usually we’re complaining about the weather but this time we really can’t moan. The winter has been mild with just a little bit of snow to remind us what last winter was like, and the horses have moved to their winter field. If they would only respect the fencing on the long runways that lead around the field and out to Bank Field, this would be a massively time saving move for us! It’s lovely having a break from mucking out the fields every day, though, and they are absolutely delighted to be roaming around 12 acres of long grass.

Beautiful as the scenery is, we’ve been working hard to re-home excess ornaments, and in 2011 we found alternative accommodation for Free Be, Asterix, High Flyer, and, at the very end of December, Amber! Although very beautiful, she could hardly be described as an excess ornament, however, as she has become extremely useful to us in the school. Her lightness, ability to piaffe, and her exquisite araby ability to express her irritation about an inappropriate leg or hand aid all made her a fantastic teacher. We miss her dreadfully already. But a lovely client fell in love with her during an Intensive, and agreed to a price that has made the pain of her going considerably easier to bear. She is living with a fellow Recommended Associate, and I know that she will be supremely well cared for and happy. She also really liked the client who fell for her, too! She’s gone for a month’s trial, so by the next issue of Horsemanship magazine we will either be better off and a bit sad, or not so well off but have our lovely horse back!

The balance of paying to non-paying guests has been further improved by the prospective arrival of two new ponies in early January. Possibly for the first time ever, that would mean we have more liveries than horses of our own. After nearly 14 years here, I think we might finally be hitting on a business model that will actually work!

With winter just over the horizon we’ve been getting ready. One of the main jobs that involves is collecting apples- there are about 20 apple trees here on the estate, and nobody else does anything with them so we collect them up and store them. All last winter we were able to feed a couple to each of the horses daily right through till March. In times of snow and ice, it’s the only fresh fodder they get. It also helps to get them in the yard when we call- plus the kids love them!

Unusually we have split the herd in two, because we have some new liveries who need feeding up, but most of ours are borderline obese, and there is tons of grass. More than half our land has not been grazed for months and is waiting for winter. So the skinnies are in a field with ad-lib lush grazing that has been carefully nurtured all summer, while the fatties get a slither of a new strip to graze each night, and they have to go half a mile along the edge of the field to get it (thanks to Jamie Jackson).

It’s really important for us to make the most of opportunities to earn while the weather is still acceptably mild, and we recently had a horse in for a couple of weeks that was a spectacular success. A part-bred Arab, I met her about 6 months ago, when called out to her home. Everything was wrong about her situation, and she was rearing and unrideable, even at a walk. After getting a new saddle, seeing the physio several times, and a couple of months of long lining, she came up here for some remedial training, and the owner had a very helpful hypnotherapy session. I don’t think she had ever been properly calm under saddle, or even just around people. Well, what a horse she is becoming- and her paces are among the best we’ve ever seen. It was so rewarding to see her owner hack out on her after less than 2 weeks here, in walk, trot and canter without the slightest issue. You don’t always get the payback that her owner is getting, and she really deserves it. She didn’t want a problem horse, or expect to go on the journey she has, and didn’t have the money for training- that will be welcome income in midwinter when she pays- but when her horse would come over and put her nose right by our shoulders, we felt sure she was saying thanks for what we’ve done to help her enjoy life again. It’s all worth it for moments like that.

Well, the new website is doing its job, and we are finding ourselves inundated with enquiries, which is fabulous. Some of these have been new liveries, which is something we have been wanting to increase for a while, and we’re delighted to have five new horses here – or we will do, when they all arrive! Three are here already and settling in beautifully, and the other two are due in a month. This provides a very welcome source of comparatively steady income, and given the relocation of three of our other horses doesn’t even mean that we’re overstocking.

One of the liveries has come from Holland and his owners have emigrated to Australia, which is a slightly odd situation – although they have a house near us and aren’t moving permanently, so it makes more sense. The other is going to be a posh horse later in his life but is here to be in a herd and grow up for a couple of years, which is lovely. His owner is also not local. The others are more typical local owners who haven’t found their current arrangements to be working too well.

We had a bit of a hay fiasco this year. Since the farmer who normally does it declared it not worthwhile, our landlord kindly offered us a field or two to cut – about 40 acres in total, but with “some ragwort”. It was up to us to assess and decide if it was worth it. We thought one of the fields was, and duly set about clearing it, but with most of the work falling to our trusted workers. Then the weather was dodgy and the economics weren’t going to work out, and we decided against it. At least the hay situation doesn’t look as bad as it might have done, and although the prices around and about are still rather more than we’d like to pay (aren’t they always?!), it’s not too scary. Plus we have loads of grass. It’s just the prospect of another hard winter/dry spring that’s a bit worrying.

Training enquiries are also numerous at the moment, which is creating scheduling problems – but these are good problems to have. Clinics on the other hand are abnormally quiet – which is probably just as well!

Our decluttering has continued in an even more ruthless fashion, with the actual selling of a horse! The second one in fourteen years. Whilst this doesn’t exactly make us dealers, it was very satisfying nevertheless. The horse in question is none other than the infamous High Flyer. We miss him around the yard, of course. It isn’t the same being able to leave a wheelbarrow full of muck in the yard and knowing it won’t get knocked over, nor being able to put tack on the gate and not have it chewed. But we’re delighted that he’s gone to a fantastic home, where he settled in immediately and seems very pleased to be getting lots of one to one attention. I’m sure they have wheelbarrows for him to knock over, and saddles of the very highest quality to chew.

We were pleased of course to finally see some rain, but got bad news from out hay maker, who surveyed our fields and decreed them not worth cutting. Ouch! All the more reason to be pleased we have fewer horses on site.

As is the constant pulse checking and monitoring as a result of the rain and sunshine we’ve been having! Luckily, if we have to keep them off the grass, Red the shetland pony can always come in the house (as he did so for the first time last week  – it was really only a matter of time), and a few of them seem impervious to grass sugars so it’s not too daunting a prospect.

We’ve been busy with horses and courses, too, and lots of teaching, but our main preoccupation for seemingly ages has been sorting out our new website. This has been a truly gargantuan task, as it has also necessitated being clear about our actual business. Hmmm. Much discussion and many more hours in front of a screen than is reasonable, and burning many candles at both ends and in the middle, and we’re finally live! It’s still very open to tweaking, and adding, and we now finally recognise the ongoing nature of the beast.

Well, we’ve been talking for ages about doing something about the field ornaments. Not to complete minimalist standards, but just to de-clutter a little. To this end, we’re delighted that Free Be and Asterix have found a home with an ex working pupil, even if it is likely to be only for a year. They seem very happy. And we’ve definitely noticed the difference when mucking out the dry-as-a-bone fields. But as is so often the way, we also found ourselves taking another horse in – but this time he’s a mini shetland who bucks the trend for his breed’s reputation by being a SAINT.  Two 16hh chestnuts replaced by a 8hh-er. That is a good exchange. The kids love him, and he tolerates a lot. I think he might be set to be the fittest shetland ever.

Well of course it hasn’t rained, and of course it’s causing concern about hay for next winter and so on. But at least the horses are almost all a reasonable weight, even if some do resemble hamsters: we’ve had a few cases of “grass glands” which the vet described a little vaguely as “a reaction to something or other, probably in the hedgerow, around this time of year.” Apparently  a hot, dry Spring makes it worse, but it should go away soon. Offers to treat with steroids politely declined!

Reducing the numbers has somehow given us more time to work with the horses, and for the first time ever, everyone is doing something – even Misty, who is being prepared as a child’s second pony. She won’t be needed for a few years, but I suspect we’ll need that time! Early work is going well, though, and she would make a spirited, exciting dressage horse if only she were more than 11 hands high! We’ve also found ourselves with more time on our hands (and less money) due to the departure of a long term training horse who flew to the States last week. Export papers, DEFRA, and a last minute kick to the knee made for a tense time, but he’s landed safely and five days later is nearly at his new home.  We just hope they showed suitable in-flight movies!

February at Moor Wood was fantastic for us, with temperatures in the 20°s, beautiful sunshine, trips up amazing volcanoes, and boat rides to watch whales and dolphins frolicking in the sea. Oh no, sorry, that’s not Moor Wood, that was Tenerife where we managed to escape for 3 whole weeks, much to the delight of our little people.

Still, when we returned to England it was to the start of some spectacular early Spring weather, and a definite end in sight to the winter. Now in early March the ground is perfect for fast hacks across the Cotswold countryside, with no flies or midges to mar the fun. The fields are rolled, the horses are out of their winter field, and we still have a decent number of bales of hay left over from our winter stash. We are so pleased that we finally decided to venture into the tricky world of haymaking! New gravel has arrived so our muddy yard is now a pleasure to walk across, and we’re all (children included) busily working away to smarten everything up in preparation for a big corporate day we’re doing later in the month.

The only fly in the ointment is the school: we’ve put down a load of new surface, but in some places it’s still a bit deep. Deep as in the going is deep, not as in a nice depth of firm surface. Our school has always been really good, and we’re worried that the layer of gravel under the membrane might be compacting. It’s been down for nearly 20 years, and it might need a major overhaul. The question is whether another load will help, or just be more to dig up later. It’s a decision we can’t quite bring ourselves to make, and we’re doing some experimenting with buckets of water to see where the drainage problems lie. Oh joy!

We’re looking forward to a busy year. The clinics are not as full as usual, but we are getting a lot of enquiries for callouts, private intensives, and starters. Oh, and the big news!  Two of our horses are going to a new home together, and we have a sharer for Amber. Just need to find a home for High Flyer and get some more liveries and we’ll be sorted. Lovely Welsh Cob anyone?!

It’ll come as no surprise to anyone that the very cold weather has interfered with any plans we had, unless it was to improve our sledding skills! Where we live, on a private estate, the driveway is about 1/4 mile long and very steep in places. So when it is icy or covered in snow, we can’t use it.  This is quite a problem because with 2 kids aged 1 and 3, asking them to walk to the top of the drive is a big ask, and carrying them is dangerous when it is slippery. The best solution we’ve found was to put them in the trailer of our quad bike and take them up with that, wrapped in sleeping bags.

Basically, we didn’t go anywhere or do anything we didn’t have to, not least with our horses, who live out. Our outdoor school means that working horses in frozen weather is either very difficult or impossible. Being at the top of the Cotswolds, at nearly 1000 ft altitude, it is often frozen here with snow all over the place while just 5 miles away in Cirencester, at the bottom of a big hill, it’s frost-free. So for several weeks we’ve had a virtual shutdown, with very little income from any source other than our few liveries. We had Christmas at home the 4 of us, running the yard without almost no help after helpers went home for the holidays.

However, we have found ways to make winter a lot easier. Two years ago we were keeping the herd in the yard and feeding haylage. All the taps froze, of course, so we were carrying buckets out to the 13 horses across the slippery drive from the house. It seemed as though we were continuously mucking out, feeding, watering or thawing out ready for the next time. As the muck would freeze to the snow after a couple of hours, we’d have to muck out the yard many times a day. I found myself one night at 2 AM mucking out and lost it so badly I screamed at the sky, “CAN WE JUST HAVE ONE DAY WHEN IT DOESN’T SNOW????” The next day it thawed and it didn’t snow again, which made me wonder sheepishly why I hadn’t tried that before! In the end, however, I decided a more rational approach and as much efficiency as possible might be more likely to make the next winter easier.

We knew we had a lot of assets to make winter more bearable even if buying a 4×4 wasn’t going to be possible. So, over the last two winters we have put our minds to it and made such improvements that instead of the previous many hours a day, now it only takes a total of 40 mins to “do” the horses. So far they look just as happy and healthy as ever.

One thing we’ve done is solve the feeding problem.  We made hay for the first time this year, and had it put into a large, stone field shelter right next to the corner of the field they are in. So feeding (a total of 2-3 bales of hay a day) has involved nothing more than chucking bales through a gate, and dispersing it into many piles. Not only that, but we don’t muck out their winter field- instead we keep them off it for long enough that the worms on it will die (9 months).

The other big problem was water. Carrying over buckets was never going to be the best way, and eventually last year we worked out that even when the indoor tap works in the yard, carrying buckets on ice is never ideal. Running a hosepipe from the house worked better, especially since there is virually no traffic on the ice-run we call the driveway that the pipe has to cross.  Our intrepid landlord is about the only person who ventures out in his four-wheel drive. But even so, the fact that there is running water available from the stream made us re-think our fencing strategy.

Because we subdivide the fields with electric tape, the stream water is not always available. Since the water troughs are fed by natural spring water, that isn’t really an issue, except of course in winter when the troughs freeze. We usually have a runway running across the middle of our spring-summer-autumn fields (called Cow Ground), taking the shortest route to our winter grazing, Bank Field. Nicole had often thought that another runway running to the lower watering spot, from Bank Field through a gate and into Cow Ground, would be a good idea, but it was never going to be electrified. Also, this lower drinking hole does sometimes freeze. The other place the stream enters the field is a considerable distance away.

So, more of our very favourite activity: fencing. A lot more. But the runway that travels around the bottom edge of Cow Ground and out into Bank Field has saved us ours of back-breaking work. No more water buckets. Haylage from the yard can be tipped safely over the fence. Hay from the stone shelter can be put into Bank Field. The horses move like their meant to, miles every day. No more icy water down the inside of wellies. No more breaking ice on troughs. You know what they say about Mother, Necessity and Invention!

There we were,living the dream, and then winter started. It’s hard to break the habit of thinking the long summer days are still with us. It seems like just a few weeks ago that we could work till late evening if we hadn’t got everything finished. Now the clocks have changed and it’s a tricky to fit everything in. Lunch breaks are spent eyeing the clock as any loitering will surely result in a rush to finish before the light goes. Our lovely, dedicated yard helpers are already doing quite a bit in the dark.

Clinics are over for the year. As well as several long term training liveries and a couple of horses whose owners are on a vacation, we’ve got a couple of horses in for starting, which is always fun. However, although they are two of the most pleasant horses you ever could meet, and their training is coming on very nicely, they aren’t good with the electric fence. They’ve broken something down each of the last 4 nights. Nicole has run out first thing to separate them from our herd two days in a row in spite of moving them to a different paddock, seemingly endless hours spent reinforcing the electric tape, getting the current really strong, and eventually putting up a second fence line, all to no avail. The last straw came when one of our liveries suffered a puncture wound to the flank which could have been really serious. We think it was caused by a fence post. He’ll be ok but the youngsters have broken the fence one time too many. So they are in for the night now, while the rest of the herd are out. It will cause management and possibly training issues, and stress to them. It isn’t ideal, but there isn’t an acceptable alternative.

We’re really pleased that the grass in the field has done well since hay was taken off it in late summer. We have as usual kept our winter field free of horses since early spring, but unlike previous years, have taken a hay crop off it. It’s done much better than in previous years when it was either topped or grazed with sheep. There is still a lot of grass in about half of the summer paddock, which will last them for a good month yet, and they will be getting fatter till well after Xmas after they are put on the winter field (their favourite moment of the whole year!). This combined with the huge apple crop we have been collecting has us thinking there are not many herds better catered for in this country. Certainly, in all but one of the yards I have visited recently, I have noticed a complete lack of grazing. I don’t envy those who are facing the prospect of feeding large quantities of hay already.

Annoyingly, our plans to get at least one of our surplus horses out on loan or sold have hit the rocks, when the main candidate had a nasty hoof abscess which has scuppered the training that was aimed at getting him fit for sale. Another mouth to feed all winter- and another year gone by without us learning how to sell a horse!