Kika is a Liver Chestnut mare who was born in May of 2004, purchased by me when she was going on 3 in April 2007! She had absolutely nothing done when we bought her, she couldn't even lead! With help from my mothers family where I spent every weekend and holiday while i live in Ireland (while studying at university); we trained her to saddle (and to lead - sort of!). Between injuries to her (minor ones, never more than 2 weeks break) and myself (more long term unfortunately and i was out of the saddle for 3 months then back for a bit and out again for 6 months!) we still managed to get around and try out a few things.
She tried her hoof at hunting (without me as I'm not a major hunting fan, but if anyone wanted to take her for a day out they were welcome to - she went down a treat), hunter trialing (we had one outing at a charity event which was great fun) and what we both really enjoy doing show jumping. We did a few competitions at 80cms, 90cms and 1meter classes before leaving Ireland. (Youtube link to our first double clear video, if anyone cares, teehee, you can see the rest of our vids there too!)
Anyways as mentioned above in January 2010 I was offered a job in Luxembourg, which is where I grew up incidently, for 3 months while a woman was out on maternity leave. After a month and a half I was told that the lady in question would not be returning to work and they asked me would I like to stay on for 12 months, to which i jumped at the chance!
As I had originally only been employed for 3 months I had left Kika in Ireland in the capable hands of my mothers family on the Livery yard they run where she had lived since i bought her! But now facing 12 months in Luxembourg and her still in Ireland and my paying livery, I figured why not see if i could bring her out to me. Which i obviously managed!
She now lives 10minutes walk up the road from where I am living and I get to see her every day! Which I'm not sure she is thrilled about, lol, considering while at uni i used to only ride her at the weekends and every day when on holidays. Now she gets ridden almost every day!!!
So basically this will be a blog about us and our adventures since coming out here. The yard I keep her at has amazing facilities (see pictures here); 3 indoor riding arenas, one outdoor, access to at least 17kms of forrestry, a walker and paddocks for turnout weather permitting. There is also on site instruction and extrenal instructors who come in either on special occasions for weekend clinics and/or there is a jumping instructor who comes in weekly on wednesdays.
I have been taking weekly flat lessons for about a month and a half now and was due to start jumping lessons today, but madam had other ideas when twisting one of her two week old hind shoes last friday and then proceeding to pull it off on monday before the farrier could look at her! Then yesterday after getting the shoe replaced, she caught herself with the shoes in the box or something (I wasn't there so can't know for sure) and so wrangled her way out of being ridden last night. So i cancelled todays inaugral jumping lesson as she hadn't been ridden since friday and she really does love to jump. So was think we might make a better first impression next week, when she hasn't had a "break" which would result in her getting all hot and excited at the sight of fences!
We pottered around this evening, to make sure our gears were still working ahead of our flat lesson tomorrow evening.
I guess that really is enough out of me for now, ;-)
I'll leave you with 2 pictures of Kika! The first picture taken of her in April 2007 and a more recent one after her arrival and settling in period in Lux taken in August 2010.
That's about it for my first post, fair play to you for reading that to the end!
Please do check back for more as I hope to update as regularly as possible. Probably not every evening, but on eventful evenings/days I will!
To keep on top of our adventures on the continent!
No comments:
Post a Comment
I love to hear from readers, thank you for your comment :-)