In September 2015 my mum bought her own horse called Cloudy, he is an American Paint X Thoroughbred. He's 18 this year and is an ex eventer. He hasn't been out eventing for a while now as we've had him a year and a half and his past owner had him a couple of years. Since retiring from eventing he has just been a happy hacker with his past owner and pretty much my mum. She takes him in the school on occasions and a bit more often throughout the summer when the roads are busy.

We're not sure on any of his eventing history, but we've seen some pictures his past owner had of him doing it. For the age of him he is still very much active and if you compared him to the way Legacy works you make think their ages were the other way around. He is ridden most days as my mum works in the mornings she gets the afternoons to ride so he is quite fit. There's a popular quick hacking route that the yard do, typically it takes 20 minutes there and back, it takes Cloudy 10 minutes he has such a big stride and is forward going he leaves everyone behind.

Myself and him have such a love hate relationship, he is definitely a one person horse. Lets just say we more tolerate each other. In the beginning we got along well. There were moments where he would misbehave for me but we got over that. There was a time he gave me a black eye, I've written about it in my Naf hedgy treats review. We were doing great riding together and I was even getting back into jumping on him, as he was such a confidence booster when it comes to jumping. If you aren't 100% sure on what you're doing he's great, he does it all for you. Until one day just before christmas the year we got him I was jumping him and he took off and bunny hopped until I was off, I went straight into the puddle. I was ready to finish jumping for the day after that but I got back onto to trot a 20 circle to keep my confidence on him and he did the same again but also jumping over the pole on the floor. Which was unexpected for me. Turns out when we got the back man out after that his withers was out of place and the jumping and work was causing him pain. Since that day I've lost my confidence on him and haven't ridden him without being on the lunge since. As it was even when not in pain he did like to play up for me a little anyway. My aim this year along with getting Legacy working well is to get back on Cloudy and to get back schooling him and listening to me, and maybe we'll leave the jumping as an aim for next year.

My Time at Bolesworth International CSI****

I was very excited a few months back when my mum finally agreed to come with me to Bolesworth International. Having found out about it last year but it being too late to get time off work we weren't able to go. So this year I made sure to book the time off work well in advance, well as soon as april came and we were allowed. Next up was ordering the tickets, I'd missed the 2 for 1 deal they had around Christmas and New year so the next best deal was 40% on the presale. The hardest part for us was choosing the day, there was parts of each day that we both wanted to see. This would be great if it was a day long event. After much discussion we chose to go on the Saturday 18th June. 

Trying to find the venue was complete mayhem when you listen to a satnav the whole way. It got us to about 10 minutes away perfectly then started to take us down some back roads that had signs for 'no event traffic', 'no horse boxes this way' and 'horse box parking 100 yards away'. We were on a wild goose chase turning around where we could for about 30 minutes until I ended up with Google Maps searching for Bolesworth castle, this took us the correct way. Tip for Bolesworth when you can no event traffic, please put another sign saying which way for us to go! 

Once there we had a look at a few stands then we went to watch the Show jumping on the grass, having never been before we were walking around finding out where everything was. Then finding the main arena we were just in time to see Scott Brash in the young horses class Jump off. He had a clear round on Cademuir but didn't quite get around quick enough at ended up with 7th. It was great seeing Michael Whitaker in this class to, placing in the top 6.  

After this class we had another walk around to get a coffee, hot chocolate & a danish pastry. Throughout the afternoon we had a look through the stalls, found some stuff we both wish we had the money to kit out the horses with and then we were back on the search for the ex-racehorse display, which in the end we ended up missing due to not remembering which arena it was in. One great thing I feel Bolesworth should add is a board outside each arena to say what's on and the times, I know they are probably in the programmes but not everyone want's a programme for this purpose. It was a shame because we spent most of the day not knowing which class was which, what time they started and what was on next. This was one of the main reasons we left at 2:30pm as we didn't know what was left of the day. 

Although it turned out very well as through all our walking around we were able to see Michael Whitaker on his horse waiting to go into the main ring for the young horse class presentation, Ben Maher & Scott Brash, who I really wanted a picture with and one of my aims of the day was to see him but I was too nervous to ask, silly me and that is a big regret of mine. Definitely next time there's no holding back haha. 

After having a few ups and downs of the day it turned out to be a great day, the weather held out for us although it was muddy from the past days the sky was dry and it was warm but not too hot. I'm definitely wanting to go back next year, after the traveling my mum isn't too keen so I've either got some convincing to do, find someone else to go with or have a day out to myself. 

Did you go to Bolesworth International this year? What day did you go on & are you going back again?

Credit to Events Through a Lens for the Scott Brash Picture

& the other image was from Bolesworth International Facebook.

More images can be seen from the event on both pages. 

Save Money While Shopping...! [Discount codes]

I've recently teamed up with Equestrian Co. to give my readers a great deal.
This is a great site I've found which offers pretty much everything but the horse & tack. They have really expanded and even offer products for not only dogs but cats & rabbits too. If only my cat would play with toys, I would have somewhere to spoil Legacy & My cat at the same time. They actually have some great items with some great savings on in their clearance section, I actually have my eye on a few things. The joys of Christmas being right around the corner. Buying yourself the presents with the money received. 

They've been wonderful enough to offer my readers some discount codes.
The codes are as follows:
Legacy5 for £5 off a £50 spend or more, and Legacy10 for £10 off a £100 spend or more.
What's great about these codes is that they work on the sale items, so you're saving by buying sale items then saving more with these codes. Win - Win all around.

You can visit their website here; Equestrianco

Update: Recovering From Worm Burden

Towards the end of September Legacy rapidly started to loose weight, everything she had stored up was gone in a week and a half. After speaking to a friend from work, she thought it might be worms, having wormed her routinely with the other horse in the field and poo picking regularly I didn't think this would be it. But after having the vet out he couldn't see anything wrong with her physically apart from the weight loss, he took a blood sample for the results to come back saying that he think's there's a very high chance what was wrong with her was worm burden and me worming her had sorted her out. 

So after I'd sorted that out I then had the task of getting the weight back on her, she'd gone from condition score 2-3 down to a 1 in just a short amount of time. As she was already on Readymash extra to gain a little weight before winter I finished that bag off along with the rest of the Baileys Everyday mix, then changed her over to Baileys No.4 Topline Cubes with Graze-On Dried Grass. She was on 2 feeds a day of these plus she was then getting a massive hay net throughout the day. It took her about 2 weeks for her to start showing some difference. First it went to her belly underneath, then over her ribs, and then she finally started to get a good bum. I would say she's now back to where she was before she lost the weight if not looking slightly better. To maintain her condition she is not on Allen & Page Calm & Condition with Graze-On dried grass.

Now we have the task of getting some muscle over her top line as she's quite bare along there. Obviously when her weight was down she had some time off work, but now she's back in work and we're attempting the joy of jumping, we're only working at them in trot as she's still got some work to do with her canter, but I'm hoping as she get's to know what to do with the poles I will be able to use these to slow down her canter. Any suggestions how how I can stop her speeding off when she's in canter or she'll be in a nice canter and then will speed up and take off will be great-fully taken :)