It's race time.....

The other day I got to go on another new adventure to meet some more of Mum's friends.  This time it was Barnaby and Liz.  They live near Rockley and have the most AMAZING riding ever - I want to move over there, we only crossed one road and there are miles and miles of grass tracks you can ride along.

I know Mum likes to canter and when we go out on our own we try to get some practice in, as many of my pony friends don't like going fast, or in Zippy's case is now too old and creaky.  Mum said she thought Barnaby would be up for a canter.  However when we went out on the ride he took quite a bit of convincing.

There was a big muddy hill and Liz said they always charge up there, so I was all ready to go but Barnaby wasn't interested - it was quite sticky icky mud.  However later on Mum held me back so we could have a canter to catch up as its not often we get treated to so many nice grass tracks.  I was keen to catch up so after bouncing on the spot for a while I was allowed to charge after Barnaby and met let me whizz past too, Barnaby suddenly woke up and decided to catch up and we started a race.  Humans are soooo boring just as we got going they pulled us up - hey I thought you wanted fast?

We were allowed another canter later and after a toss too much of my head a super quick acceleration Mum asked me nicely to stay behind Barnaby and let him go first - humph! but I did do as I was told.

We got one last super charged blast up the field towards home which got Barnaby and me a bit over excited and it took a while for our Mum's to calm us down and wait for the horse and trap to go past.  It was a great ride about 6 miles and I had so much fun, hope we can go back soon - thank you Barnaby for teaching me racing I had never done it before and its really good fun, thank you Liz for letting us come visit and ride with you xxx

Family Frolics

Well Christmas is a time of getting the family together, and I have managed not only to ride with my Uncle Eric down the road but I have managed to get away with inviting cousin Dave to stay too!

Mum has a new friend, Kevin, who really knows how to ride, so she arranged for him to borrow Eric.  Most of the time Eric is good but he hasn't been ridden a lot lately so was a bit fresh.  He also doesn't seem to like me much so I have to be on alert for stray legs heading in my direction.  We had a good ride around Cotmarsh, Mum was up and down like a yoyo because all the gates were shut and not pony friendly - grrrrrr!  But the weather held and we kept dry and just managed to get back before it got dark.  Hopefully I can have some more rides with Eric soon.

Well that was what I was thinking until Mum broke the news to me that I need to have a rest for a few months while she has another operation on her ankle.  Not happy about this, especially as it means for some reason I have to give up my toasty warm rugs and stable and be 'roughed off'.  NOT IMPRESSED!

The upside though is because Zippy is so old and has to stay in her stable at night, I got to invite my mate Dave from Wales to come and stay while I am being roughed off.  He arrived yesterday afternoon, I wondered why I had been turned out in the big field on my own.  Lots of neighs and galloping ensued.  I showed off my talents at doing handstands I'm getting quite good at those, I think Dave was impressed he couldn't buck half as high as I can.  I said I'd help him practice while he's here.

However being Dales we soon had to get on with the serious job of eating grass.  For Dave this is a big plus as he was inside for the winter in his pen.  I've managed to keep my raincoat on at the moment, only because everytime Mum comes down its raining and I give her a sad face and she hasn't the heart to take it off while its tipping a gale - crafty, not too sure how long I can keep the sad face up for but will try for as long as possible!

Zippy has a bit of a reputation for not mixing with other horses and I hadn't seen her all night as we were left in the field while she was still up at the house, so it was great to see her arrive this morning.  I had made friends with Dave and we were getting on great, but Zippy says I'm not to like him, so its a bit more tricky while she is around I have to pretend I don't like him (when really I do) but as Mum put out lots of piles of hay we all settled down to eat instead.  I'll have to work out the field politics later, it could take some highly skilled negotiation techniques to win everyone around!