Home is where the horses are.

There is ever an particularly ideal time to “start” blogging again however the last couple of months have been a mix of chaotic, amazing and devastating.

To paraphrase very (very!!) briefly boxes ticked including moving house, a business and somehow place this around the major shows keeping Encore in work. I’m still not quite sure how what needed to be accomplished happened.

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Encore frightened us all when he became drastically sick one afternoon in early January. Long story short he is alive, having spent a couple of days on a drip in pony hospital. The slightly shaved patch on his neck where the cannula was hasn’t proved too much of a disadvantage thus far.

We did start him at ENSW Hoty, allbeit he had lost a lot of weight and wasn’t quite so bright. The outing did him well as he picked up a little, appetite grew and scored well enough to be in the placings.

Birthday surprise Bunny…Flopsy

2nd time I’ve blown a Tyre going to Battle of the borders. Least changing takes about 8 minutes. Makes travelling with a spare spare worthwhile?!

Battle of the borders at Albury was fun, as we collected our house keys and enjoyed the weekend. Fairly sure we did half the wrong workout in our hunter class, one of those horse goes so well and your enjoying riding them you just pat lots and canter out. New hunter jacket was also a highlight.

Canberra Royal was fun. Really windy and we cut our time being there from a week to just a few days to maximise good grass time for E. Glad we left early aka before it flooded.

Grand Nationals was successful from the perspective as a sponsor, it was great to hear feedback on products and talk to customers. One would hope people are appreciate of the effort all sponsors put in – the cash donations made for the Grand Champions prizes really were huge and well done to those people for supporting the industry.

We had our own success at Grand Nationals with Encore. Finally! You see it’s been quite a few years of random misfortunes, judges rushing through the class so as not to miss flights or massive storm coming though and scaring the life out of E that he has never been selected.

This has always been a bit of a sore point because we know beyond any doubt the judge will love riding him. Encore really is the most fun and honest horse to ride. 100% good pony which is why we don’t mind all his other quirks.

So after 8 years in the ring, he gets his chance. Albeit a bit of an error in numbers being recorded we finally had our chance. (For the record – least the live-streaming shows the wrong numbers being called out!). Admittedly due to the fact of having really bad hearing and not being able to discern what was said, it was only outside did I understand he wasn’t just sashed owner rider but also Res champ. Well done E – best pony (after J). We’d been practicing our gallops for weeks, including warming up with a gallop up the paths so I think J would have been proud of us. All of this said, I really am just thrilled to be riding Encore and have him alive.

Sydney Royal was lots of fun there, I’m a fan of the food in the stables. It’s totally worthwhile to qualify horses and attend just to eat the meatballs & chips. Encore worked very well in his open class getting a bow – admittedly I get a bit lost with ribbons colours/placing after 1/2/3. Popular opinion would seem nobody wants a poo Brown ribbon and the pink or purple ones are the most popular. Meatballs and the ability to shop at Wagners 10 times a day is awesome.

Encore’s mare friend and companion Meeka. One very sweet older Black mare. She has come from an eventing home and is very gentle and easy to handle. We consider ourselves extremely lucky to have such a pretty paddock friend for E.

Cue a few weeks with all the fun of setting up a new horse property. Safe stables and fences done we had the girls booked on transport.

As we had some of the larger events, along with moving it was arranged Scarlett would have 6wks off and stay to be companion for Grace. Grace being a few months in foal, we’d planned things to be as low stress as possible for her. The girls always got along well together.

Which considering the timing makes it all the more devastating when Scarlett had a horrific paddock accident. Poor Scarlett – we are all absolutely heartbroken. As a dear friend said, the are such big but fragile creatures.

So with that in mind, it’s so exciting to have Grace arriving home and yet rather tragic as Scarlett will not be led off with her.

What will be nice is to have all the horses together again, home is where the horses are.