pony-mum

Freeing Clyde

2009-09-20T20:47:00.002-01:00

Last week Pam broke the news that, since she hasn't been able to use Clyde in lessons for a couple of months, and since his cough is not clearing up, she could no longer keep him on working livery rates and the charge for keeping him would triple :(

This threw us into a panicky depression, and a night was spent feverishly searching the 'net for Retirement Home for Horses in the Cotwolds - without any luck at all. I got up early the next day and spent more time on the 'net, with just two (almost) affordable options resulting - one near Oxford, one in Devon.

Something then made me pick up the phone and call Emma at Wood Stanway, just five minutes away - starting, ridiculously, to cry when she told me she could take Clyde, immediately, and keep him on grass at a price even pauper-Pony-Girl can afford.

For a very long time Jay has yearned to see Clyde with more outdoor time, a Free Clyde, indeed, and certainly living in a field with other horses and beautiful scenery all around seems more of a life for a good horse than one lived mainly in a stable or a school. Kindly Pam boxed up Clyde and drove him there for us the very next day - and the picture shows the moment when we set him free in his new life, possibly in the loveliest place in the world.

Summertime Clyde

2009-08-21T07:10:00.003-01:00

Here's our lovely boy, enjoying a graze in hand.

Poor old Cloots is still coughing and at the moment there seems no likelihood he will return to 'work' any time soon. Very sad. He seems very well in himself however, bolshy , bumptious and as greedy for Napples as ever.

Pony-Girl is home from Oxford and will be looking after him tenderly for some weeks.

June 2009

2009-06-24T18:57:00.002-01:00

Here's our Cloots today, looking every bit as handsome as when we last saw him. He certainly looks in better nick than, say, RPD, who informed me today he thinks he may have 'a mild case of Swine Flu', the symptoms of which are apparently 'a slight sore throat' and 'a very bad ankle'.

Poor Pony-girl is suffering, stuck in Oxford away from her beloved pony, taking exams and condemned to extra weeks away from home this summer doing a 'project'. She is not happy about this - but she is resigned to doing all it takes to get her degree so she can Free Cloots from his life of drudgery and buy him a fresh green field for his retirement.

I''ve been busy turning Cloots' story into a book. It's taken me rather longer than I hoped.

It's been a while...

2007-03-03T13:56:00.000-01:00

Well, that was rather a longer break than I planned... but I guess it's time I started once more to capture the doings of our aged, grumpy, quirky, loveable, very ordinary pony Clyde before he kicks the bucket.

Rest assured he is currently fit as a fiddle.

Alas the same cannot be said of my pc, which has just died, having reached the astonishing age of 14 months, six and a half days. Therefore it will be a while before I can cobble together a new one out of bits and pieces I have lying around from all the other pcs I've managed to kill over the years. so expect a little bit of a wait before my next post.

The Curse of Crinkley

2006-01-11T00:51:00.000-01:00

Christmas joy filled the Merry household with the whole family gathered together and all was fun and laughter, warmth and jollity! Then came the second hour and things were getting a bit tricky, so we turned to our favourite board game, Rapidough, where you model an object in Play-Doh from a word on a card. Of course, like any other family activity, this simple pleasure can lead to bickering, sulks, and hours of resentment, but also some highs: how fondly we all remember Non-Pony-Sis’s recreation of Trafalgar Square, two inches high in pink, not to mention RPD’s storming ‘Scott’s Last Expedition’, complete with little dead doh bodies in a chilly landscape – though as we pointed out, the polar bear added to give us a clue was not geographically accurate.

It was Pony-girl’s turn and a long thick pink sausage was rapidly forming from her ball of dough. “This is quite hard to model,” said she frowningly, “But you should be able to guess it - Daddy’s got one. Or, at least, he used to have…...” pony-mum and Non-Pony-Sis’ eyes met in an unworthy snigger at this point - “But I haven’t seen it for a long time…,,” The sausage was upended and fixed to the mat in upright postion, upon which it immediately began to droop to the left. By now even RPD’s eyes were flicking back and forth in alarm, while NPS and I were behaving disgracefully, holding each other up, shoulders shaking. Pony-girl glared at us. “Why are you all being so silly?” With a scalpel she began delicately to etch a tiny hole at the end of the bulbous pink knob, holding the floppy thing up with one hand. By now we were on the floor. She fixed us with a stare – a long, long cold one. Scrabbling desperately for composure, we tried out a few half-hearted guesses, “sausage!” “hosepipe!” “Vesuvius!” though it was difficult with only one thing on all our minds, especially when a wobbly pendulous sphere joined the sausage at the base, shaped by PG’s innocent young hands. “Balloon animal!” I choked desperately, “Clyde!” usually a good guess when PG is modelling, but that was an unfortunate guess in this case and now we were all helpless with laughter, even under PG’s icy glare, which could have frozen Scott to death a whole lot faster than any mere Antarctic chill. “I don’t know why you are all being so annoying!” she gritted in fury, tyring to set the wobbly column upright, “Can’t you see what it is?” Alas we could not, not until a tiny doh handle appeared, animated (strictly against the rules) in a brisk circular motion by PG’s angry hand and RPD arrived with great relief at ‘a hand-held drill’.

So much cooking to do at Christmas! and mine is always a dodgy business – while my lemon iceream tart with a gingernut crust was a triumph (the one which didn’t have to be scraped off the floor) but my chocolate Yule cake must henceforth be known as the Log of Gloom. Solid, wet, brown and heavy, it sat on the table for three days with RPD gamely sawing off little tiny hunks for tea – one bite would strike him dumb for ages as he chewed his way through it with bulging cheeks and madly working jaw. I put it to rest on the third day in the bin, and soon after saw RPD staggering outdoors with it, bent double under the weight.

I should have asked Ethel Crinkley, our local byword for all that is superb in cookery, how to make one. Got a favourite cake recipe? Mrs Crinkley already knows it and hers will be better. It will be more scrumptious, a finer colour, and it will rise more. Do not set out your cakes beside Mrs C’s at a bake sale, for a measly price will be slapped onto yours, and yours it will be that doesn’t sell. I once asked her for a recipe for her cheese-and-walnut sables as they melted in the mouth and were so scrummy I could easily have polished off the plateful, and planned to make some at home and eat the whole lot. Either she was having a laugh when she rattled off the recipe to me or my skills are not up to the task – I could barely believe the trayful of greasy yellow crumbs I pulled out of my oven and spent some time searching down the back of the oven shelf to see if the real biscuits had slipped off. Cooking? Some got it and some ain’t.

We are back to competing on Sunday – Clyde jumped a three-foot spread tonight with a contemptuous flick of his whisked-up heels. There is a new class at Blade’s Hill – the Gold Cup Class – which has real money prizes! We had better dust off his Jumping Shoes and stick a firework under his tail.

Clyde Lost... and Found

2006-01-02T09:30:00.000-01:00

As you can see, Santa came and no-one was forgotten.

Just before Christmas it seemed as if this year’s would be a miserable one. Our easygoing, staunch little pony disappeared for a few days and was replaced by an interloper with Clyde’s looks, which scared us all. On the Saturday before Xmas I went up to the top-school to catch the end of PG’s group lesson, and was puzzled to find her going round the school on.. Tilly the cob?! As she passed, PG glimpsed my waggling eyebrows and mouthed, miserably, “Technical hitch!” I had to wait till she came round into the firing line for my next urgent question: “What’s happened?” “I can’t tell you now,” she whispered, and now I could see a small tear trickling down her pale cheek. Another wait, jiggling from foot to foot in my anxiety. When my next chance came, “Just tell me! Is Clyde OK?” I hissed, and - “No!” she burst out, swept along past me by Tilly’s staunch and hairy trit-trotting legs.

That was it, I was off, pounding down the hill on legs quite similar to Tilly’s, peering into the gloomy barn, looking for that long striped nose arrogantly thrust out, King of the Barn. It wasn’t there – Clyde had his nose down in his pile of hay. “Cly-yde!” I called, hurrying up to the gate. Nothing could be wrong, surely? He was upright! Eating!

Clyde stopped munching. He froze. He dropped the mouthful of hay and began to back away from me, eyes trained on me in a fixed and chilly stare. My heart stopped: it was a stranger there in our stable, an imposter with cold dead eyes looking out at me (the eeriest thing!) from Clyde’s familiar face. Chilled, I tried calling, talking softly, holding out my hand, producing a mint. Nothing but that wary, frozen stance and that bleak and icy stare trained unwaveringly on me as if I were a spectre from the dead. Something really was wrong.

The story unfolded when PG came back from her unhappy ride. How Clyde had been one minute perfectly OK, then suddenly seemed to go mad. Reared and whinnied with no warning. Would not be touched.. Panicked too much to have his tack put on. Had had to be left there while an alternative mount was found. Seemed to recognise nothing and no-one. Backed away and froze when anyone approached, wide-eyed in terror, poised for flight.
At a loss we stood there: and it occurred to me that a pony in pain might behave very much like this one, and when Clyde got into peeing position and stood there for a long time without success it became clear we needed help.
Pat strode into the barn, all no-nonsense briskness in the face of our jibbering terror, went into his stable and snapped a headcollar on. I think she had probably suspected some panicky overreaction on the part of the two greenest, most hopeless and most adoring owners at the yard… but when Clyde, teeth bared and ears flat, tried a savage double-barrelled kick as she went to take his rugs off, even she looked startled: “Right! Oh, that’s not ‘Clyde’, is it. Off to the lunge pen with you my lad and let’s see what all this is about.”

At the end of a lunge-rein Clyde trotted and even cantered without apparent distress, he seemed unusually chancy of temper and prone to kick, but there was no sweating, no breathing distress, and his eyes were bright and clear. “Well, he’s not ill, I’m sure,” down-to-earth Pat said, “I can see he’s NOT himself, but… I don’t think it’s anything to be worried about.” Nothing to worry about? While it was a relief to know my various diagnoses of kidney infection, colic, ragwort posioning and brain tumour were all off the mark, a character transplant seemed potentially even more disastrous! The very reason Clyde has been such a happy story for us has not been the champion’s rug, the triumphs and rosettes, but that he has been such an easy pony, so dependable, so trusty that even a hopeless novice city-girl pony-mum can take him off in the van for a day and not think, even once that here in her care is a huge beast with a mind of its own, nor that her slight and nervy daughter stays in the stable alone with a huge, essentially stupid animal of a species which panics easily and kicks out with half a tonne of brute strength. How much damage would this do to her confidence?

Apparently the same thing crossed Pat’s mind, for her next words were: “ .. so now on you get and take him up to the top school. Yes, alone. Yes, to ride him, did you think I meant to give ‘im a look at the view, loike?!” Something about practical Pat’s scathing tones did the trick and PG took him off, a-quake and a-tremble. All went well, he seemed to settle under saddle, but it was several days before our Clyde was ours again, tending to panic at the sight of people, a dung fork, his water bucket, and his shadow, and a full week before PG regained her confidence in that easy, trusting bond they seem to have. What did our brave, calm, friendly pony conjure up from shadows that so terrifed him he lost his trust in even us? If only we could read their minds. If only they could talk.

All Good Ponies...

2005-12-24T13:58:00.000-01:00

Santa will be calling by at NagsR'Us tonight to fill the stocking of any good little ponies he finds... I am sure he won't forget Clyde.

Pony-girl has been up at dawn every day seeing to him - pony-owning being a 365-day a year thing - not that she minds, and she will be there early tomorrow to help him open his stocking. Have a very Merry Christmas and take care. Updates soon!

Midnight, and the clock strikes. It is Christmas Day, the werewolves' birthday, the door of the solstice still wide enough open to let them all slink through...

Down and Out at Blade's

2005-12-17T21:46:00.000-01:00

This update has been delayed owing to Xmas, which will keep on getting in the way at this time of year, and events have somewhat overtaken the story of the Christmas One-Day Event at Blade’s Hill the Sunday before last, but here we go anyway: we decided PG should not enter the 70cm class but instead the 85cm as it would ‘give a chance’ to people who weren’t riding Blade’s Best Pony 2005. This noble decision cost us, as you will see, but I guess we have the reward of, well, nobility in the place of rosettes, points and the rather nice Xmas gifts on offer for 1-3rd places, and who wouldn’t rather have that glow of noble sacrifice than material reward? Yes, quite!

All started well, exceptionally well in fact, with Clyde doing the dressage test of his life, the judge even writing on his scoresheet ‘This is a lovely pony…’ a phrase which had us gasping and mopping tears from our sentimental eyes, for Clyde’s loveliness is, I feel, sometimes not so well appreciated as it might be. It takes time to spot the inner beauty beyond those donkey ears, those cobby legs, that grumpy face. But this judge had that rare vision and awarded him a mark which put him in second place. Next came the showjumping, and when I tell you the jumps were big, believe me, they were big. Everyone suspected a cockup due to the Christmas punch being freely drunk by the jumpsetters, but dauntingly big they stayed despite appeals.
“Has he ever jumped that high? Are they ever that high at Pat’s?” PG gasped in horror, staring at poles the height of Clyde’s chin.
“Oh all the time!” I lied. “They just look big because, well because they’re a different colour!” My knees were shaking so much I couldn’t bear to watch, but when I tottered back round the corner pale with dread, there was Clyde trotting towards me with his usual insouciance, all four legs going along ok and PG on top without a black eye or a splint.
“Go ok?” I quavered.
“He was wonderful! He flew over everything!” Now I wished I’d watched.

Still in second place then, and CrossCountry to come, Clyde’s best discipline and the one Pony-girl is least nervous about for some strange reason known only to her. I relaxed and leaned on the fence to watch. Bang! - Whoooosh!!!! That was Clyde rocketing out of the start gate and galloping down the long side flat out. He was going at an astonishing rate, legs in a blur, launching off from a powerful spring over every jump in turn then racing on for the next. Fluent and powerful, doing what he loved best, and every time they shot past the gate PG was laughing, exhilarated with the madcapdashery of it. When they galloped to the finish, they were 15 seconds under the previous best time. There was only one problem. Many of the jumps lay flat on the floor. In Clyde’s excitement he had forgotten the little matter of leaving them, if possible, still up.

“It won’t matter,” Pg said, flushed and excited, “It’s crosscountry rules – you don’t get penalised for knockdowns - only for refusals or error of course.” But alas she was wrong and when her score went up, there was an 8-point deduction whihch pushed them into 5th, two places away from the prizes.

Well, nothing could spoil Clyde’s mood. He was very pleased with himself indeed, pushing his nose into my hand and looking for praise: I went real quick and I didn’t stop at nuffink, now where’s me treat!
He got his treat, of course.

This morning Clyde had some kind of ‘event’ – either a sudden traumatic pain or a severe fright – which scared us all and is at the time of writing still ongoing. No sleep for Pony-girl I fear, until she sees him tomorrow and gets a better idea of what’s going on. More on that when I know more.

From the Horse's Mouth

2005-11-26T21:20:00.000-01:00

“Tils! Tils! Look at me rear end!”
“Why would I wanna look at that, Clyde?”
“See what it says!”
“What does it say?”
“It says Darkest Dangerous Braveheart, Amazing Superstar Champion Stallion!”
“It does not, Clyde.”
“Oh yes it do, Tils. So There.”

And so it does.

Lap of Honour

2005-11-16T19:33:00.000-01:00

It was one year ago to the day that we paid for Clyde and he became ours: I remember trooping en famille into his stable and looking unenthusiastically at our purchase. Clyde, shabbier than I’d hoped, had his nose stuck down into his pile of hay and barely glanced up. I think it's safe to say that none of us was impressed. “Reckon I got anuvver rider, Tils. Whaddya fink?” “You mark my words mah son, that one’ll never amount to much.” One aging, all-but-forgotten pony, a has-been; one nervous novice rider, a never-was. It didn’t look promising. So in some sense this year has been a rags to riches story, and even, dare I say it, a touch Jill-and-her-pony-like, wherein Jill buys a showjumper, dislikes him from the start – “He jumps like a rocking-horse and eats his buckets!” – but ends up winning the Under-16 Jumping at Chatton Show, Rapide leaping 4’6” without brushing a pole, and Jill modestly throwing in a few half-passes and the odd piaffe in her lap of honour. Though, unlike Jill, I’m still looking for that stable she handily unearthed at the bottom of her garden and the rich mentor “Come and practice anytime in my 600ft menage Jill, and take any saddle you like from my extensively-stocked tackroom, I am so rich I will never miss it!”

You see, before the jumping began on Sunday, Clyde’s Anniversary Day, I was waylaid by Mrs Blade who oh-so-casually said to me:
“What size, ahem, rug would Darkest Braveheart take, then?” For the umpteenth time I turned my head to look for this Darkest Braveheart and then remembered we were talking about our pony, Clyde, and then - realisation dawned: the prize for Blade’s Best Pony is …..a rug. Oh heaven - ! Oh joy - !

Sweaty-palmed, I stayed cool, very cool, as I equally casually replied: “Oh, haha, rug? 6’6, as it happens.”
She looked staggered. “Are you sure?”
“Oh yes, quite sure, we bought him quite a few lately what with his anti-fly rug and his extra cooler and – “ oh heck, that sounds like we’ve got too many to care, when really for our brave little Clyde to win, to actually win, a rug for being Best Pony would be the most exciting thing that ever happened to us! “Not that we’ve got many of course, and they’re all pretty old and – “
“And his size is definitely, hmmm, 6’6?”
“Oh yes,” I prattled, “Only the other day I ordered another one so I do know his exact size – well I know I just said they were all old, but this was just a cheap one – off eBay you know – and – well you can never have too many rugs can you – not that he has got many – hardly any in fact!”

She was definitely looking at me a bit oddly as she wrote down “6’6”’ and as I left her I was thinking maybe that hadn’t gone too well but ohhh! My heart was singing!.
Pony-girl could hardly decipher the excited words tumbling from my lips but when she took it in her eyes went wide and starry, her hand reaching down to pat the treasured one’s shaven neck: “Oh! Mummy! Is he really - ? Blade’s Best Pony 2005?”
“It looks like he might be,” I whispered, patting his soft ginger nose in awe, “Why else would she ask his rug size?”
PG recovered enough to ask “And what size did you ask for - ?”
“6’6” of course.”
“Five foot six you mean?” she queried, and that’s when I realised I had made a little slip-up.
PG could hardly believe it – “You’ll have to go back and tell her! You’ll have to! Oh Mummy you are such an idiot!”
“Well how can I,” I snapped, aghast, “We were both pretending it was just a casual making-conversation type of question! I can hardly say, ‘Coo-ee, Mrs Blade, you know you were casually asking what size rug Clyde, I mean Darkest Braveheart, took? Well silly old me, I was a teeny bit out, well actually a whole foot out, not that it matters in the slightest since we were just having a very casual chat about rugs in general, haha, but just to put the record straight and all that..”

We both realised the impossibility of this, so now I have to live forever with the knowledge that our pony may have earned himself, by his own skill and courage, a Champion’s Rug, and it’s only idiot Pony-mum's fault that it’s cut for an elephant and will swamp him to the ground, just his ears and tail poking out as he staggers along in a sort of big tent to the floor.

It was time to jump then, and, this being a fairy-tale sort of day, Clyde jumped as if inspired, ridden by an equally inspired PG making him turn on a sixpence and spring from a standstill, gaining 2nd place in two classes on his time alone and 5th in the last, against a very strong field of over 30 determined riders young and old. For the first time he got to do a victory lap of honour – three times – cantering in fine style around the arena in a convoy of the Chosen Six, and Pony-girl was looking at the world through a sparkle of tears and love for the Best Pony of our hearts, 2005 and forever.

"Anuvver lap of honour - yeah yeah"

Eventful Challenge

2005-11-10T13:21:00.000-01:00

Last Sunday was the Eventer Challenge at Blade’s Hill - the rain was pouring down, the sky a great dirty grey bucket tipping down torrents of water on us all day, and so we decided to leave Clyde in Horatio our horsebox while we went off to pay for our classes and check the boards. Clyde is outraged to be left inside when he knows full well we’ve arrived and a furious banging and neighing ensues, signalling to all and sundry that our box contains one mighty cross pony. But it’s time he got used to it as all the other horses seem to stand there contentedly enough and it’s for his own good, all that fuss about coming out and then he stands there in the rain with his head hanging low, the saddest, dampest, most mistreated object in the world ‘I’m a poor cold wet pony wiv water drippin’ off me nose!’ So off we went leaving him safely inside with the ramp down and the gate across: “Back in 5 minutes, Clyde!”

When we came back, we found the side gate opened and nudged securely into handrail position, the breastbar lying on the floor and Clyde heading determinedly down the ramp to freedom. This was very clever as even I have trouble unpinning the heavy breastbar and I see no reason why in future we shouldn’t impress everyone by standing back with arms folded and letting Clyde unload himself.
“Well done boy but what have I told you, now go back and get your saddle!”

Now, this Eventer Challenge was aptly named, for, being winter and the cross-country fields closed, I was expecting a course of ordinary jumps with a few bristles and a shabby plastic flower stuck on top, but instead it consisted of two separate rounds, the first showjumping, the second proper cross-country jumps set out in the arena, flowers, bushes, rolltop barrels, the full works. It was about half a mile long in total with an optimum time to compete one section. Since Pony-girl has no idea how to time a round this was kindly dumbed down for her as ‘just keep a rhythmic canter all the way round, dear.' There was a little surprise in the form of a Starting Gate – no-one knew how Clyde was going to react to that and when summoned for his turn he stood there impassively, thinking his pony-thoughts – hay… apples…bit clever escapin’ from the box weren’t I.. snoozetime soon? …hay.... as Mrs Blade counted him down - “5-4-3-2-1- ”

POW! Clyde exploded from the box as if he had been sneezed out, galloping full pelt down the long side of the arena and heading for what he thought must be the first jump. Pony-girl took a while to catch up and was just in time to collect her wits and turn him towards the real first jump, which he took in fine style and zoomed around l the rest without a stop. This was pretty fantastic going and he gained 2rd place in the 75cm class and 3nd in the 85 cm (I am sure I need not tell you who beat our team on style marks to get the top slots.) Nonetheless we were pretty pleased with this and wonder who it was taught Clyde to erupt into a racing gallop from a standstill on a count of 1, since when we bought him he was widely deemed to be a riding-school plod, but then again our unpromising shabby little chap has proved to be anything but, time and time again. We took our blue and yellow rosettes and our 18 points for the Blade’s League and prepared to leave in much triumph.

Now it is a rule of nature that whenever I’m backing out Horatio, to one side of me appears a nervous horse, tethered and rearing, and behind the box slowly strolls the family with the baby buggy. The Buggy Family are absolutely never seen at any other time, and have been planted on this Earth just to walk behind my horsebox when I’m in reverse gear with no rear vision. So there I was backing the van out between these twin hazards and coping with PG’s uncertain directions ‘”it’s clear! Come ON! – no wait!!! STOP!!!! Oh hang on, it’s ok…” when suddenly a total silence fell. I sat there, engine running, getting crosser and crosser: what was going on? Finally I poked my head angrily out of the window to see my navigator doubled up in laughter. The buggy family were staring silently at our box, from which cascaded torrents of something yellow and… copious. From every corner and every opening it was streaming out and flooding the carpark in long, saffron rivulets. The reason for Clyde’s unusually eager bolt up the loading ramp became clear: the moment the door slammed shut he was easing into wee position, groaning with relief and letting rip: thank gawd. Privacy at last!

As we chugged and lurched through the gears out of the carpark we left a little river behind us all the way. I passed the Buggy Mummy, who had one fastidious hand over baby’s nose. I expect it was pungent. We had certainly left our mark on Blade’s Hill today, but to this day Clyde lives in blissful ignorance and thinks he got away with it.

Mixed Fortunes

2005-11-01T13:14:00.000-01:00

Another of my PCs has died, kaput, finis, shuffled off its mortal coil at three years old, hence the delay in updates. Another PC is on its way, but there is no reason to assume it wil last any longer than the last two. Panikos and I are designing a series of small tombstones with pc name, dates etc, to affix to our signatures as we seem to have the touch of certain doom.

But.. what's being going on in the pony-world, I hear you ask!

Recent results:

Combined Training Sunday 23 Oct:

Dressage – Prelim 10 - middling score in line with recent lacklustre performances
Jumping 75cm – went clear, finished 4th overall (green rosette)
Jumping 85cm, clear, finished 2nd overall (blue rosette)

Dressage only – Sunday 30 Oct

Prelim 12 – 68.5% - 5th place – big improvement (orange rosette)
Novice 21 -this was Clyde’s first Novice test, stepping up a level from Prelim, and he did surprisingly well – 62.5% from a harsh judge, and he would actually have been placed had Lucinda Trophy-Tophat not entered on two horses, which clearly should not be allowed, as it unfairly penalises non-rich people who are Making the Best of It with just one, mediocre mount.

Not that Clyde thinks he is in any way mediocre – not since the invitation to the Awards evening came in – yesssssssssss!!! Mr Blade handed it to Pony-girl personally and we were thrilled to see that they have been nominated for three awards:

Best Junior Rider
Best Pony
CrossCountry Champion

They might win none of these of course, as there are 6 nominees in each category, but just to be asked! To be there! What a thrill! To celebrate we rushed out and bought a big bag of Apple Treats, which look exactly like regurgitated owl pellets, in a nauseous shade of green. However, Clyde would kill for these, and sometimes nearly does - they have a terrible effect on his behaviour and after scarfing down a handful he always makes a savage lunge at the ponies on each side of his stall, for no reason at all except Haha, I got treats and you didn’t, I’m a bigger’n’smarter’n higher up the herd-sorta-pony than you!

Last Sunday we had a little incident on closing up the horsebox. Pony-girl is on duty inside the box at such times, hauling on Clyde’s silly nose to keep it out of the way of the slamming ramps as he tries repeatedly to poke it out to see what’s going on. I was levering up the side-door from the ground, panting, and could hear her issuing a stream of complaints inside, not unusual, so I ignored it - until the whinges within reached a frantically noisy pitch. “Oh whatever IS the matter!” I called in exasperation, and looked around the edge, only to see I had been slowly heaving up Pony-girl’s right leg along with the door. There she was with one thigh cranked up to shoulder-height, wobbling on her other foot. As I lowered the ramp, along with it came down the leg, its graceful descent marred by a loud creaking and groaning from PG’s hip socket – or the ramp hinges, and all the while Clyde looked on, frankly astonished at our antics.

It was all so silly we both collapsed into giggles and couldn’t wait to retell this tale to Reluctant-pony-dad when we got home, buffooning it as we acted it out - “and then her leg came down, slowly, majestically – ‘ and although we could hardly speak for laughing, at the end of our tale he had not cracked a smile.

“Was it,” he began slowly, “the side door…. or the rear door?"

I suppose you had to be there.

Clyde looks on, astonished

The New Boots

2005-10-25T17:51:00.000-01:00

So….. it was Sunday, the day of the Combined Training competition at Blade’s Hill, time to pop on the new travelwear prior to setting off in Horatio, our van. We were quite excited about this brand-new gear, as most of Clyde’s stuff comes from eBay and has vital parts missing or is a dubious colour with a strange smell, so while he was being booted-up in his stable I thought he deserved an audience for his departure: “Wait, wait!” I implored passersby, “Come and see this! Clyde’ll be out in a moment and he’s got his new travel boots on!” A polite crowd gathered while Pony-girl panted and puffed invisibly behind the stable gate.
We waited. Time passed. “Is he coming out soon?” I called, anxious that the audience was becoming restive.
“Yes – I hope he can – “ came the mysterious reply.
Bang! The stable door flew open with a crash and out tripped Clyde, his face dour and resigned, four burgundy travel-trotters clipped around his cobby legs, impelling him forward in a peculiar, high-stepping gait as he progressed down the yard. Each front leg would rise up in the normal fashion, attempt to flex at the knee, be hampered by a solid wodge of burgundy boot, then slap with a crash to the floor while propelling along the rear feet in a series of mechanical, jerky piaffes, exactly like a clockwork horse from one of those cheap tin-toy stocking –filler sites. Far from the ripple of awe and envy I had expected, people were holding each other up, clutching each other with mirth and howling with silent laughter as he passed.

Still, so long as he never tries to move they look very professional and they certainly have speeded up departure times and eased the troubled path of a pony-mum, which has been littered so far not with glory but a succession of dung-stained bandages. And so, to the Show!

Were we to win more points to bump us up the league, or would Lucinda Trophy-Tophat scoop the lot? Would the fabled invitation to the Awards Ceremony ever appear? Would Clyde even make it down the ramp in his bulbous new legwear?

To be continued….

New Boots for Clyde

2005-10-19T20:12:00.000-01:00

As a change from competing at Blade’s Hill, Pony-girl went to the Horse of the Year Show on Sunday – no, no! she and Clyde had not been selected to compete, though Clyde probably thought he was on the team when he heard about the trip: “I’m off to Orse o’ Year Show, Tils! Not before time neivver!" “I fink you got that wrong mah son, unless o'course you’re pullin’ the cart to take ‘em there.” No, this was a Nags’R’Us outing, and Pony-girl arrived home with stars in her eyes from watching the showjumping finals, some dazzling displays including Natural Horsemanship, and of course, 3 hours spent going round the trade stands, her eyes out on stalks at all the wonderful goods on offer. I had cunningly not gone, as where I don’t go, nor does my credit card, a wonderful invention that all teenagers love, because the bill does not have their name on it.

PG came home with a set of four pony travel-boots in burgundy, very smart and quite a bargain. Since we bought Horatio our horsebox and have been going off to competitions most Sundays, we have been using the raffle-prize Winnie-the-Pooh leg bandages to protect Clyde’s legs in transit and frankly, the only good thing about these is that they were free. At the end of the day, everyone else snaps on velcro-ed travel boots, like a team of skilled mechanics slapping on 4 new tyres at a 7 second pitstop and off they go with a gay wave, vanishing swiftly down the road. We’ve hardly started! First the bandages have to be rolled… a simple yet tedious task deemed ideal for pony-mum, although my work usually fails the inspection: “Tighter! Oh that’s hopeless mummy, you’ll have to do them all again!” Then we wrap a sort of foam paving-slab around the first leg: in a sort of cramped half squat, I hold it tight while PG whips the bandage round and round, finishing with Winnie-the-Pooh right over each pony-knee the size of a knobbly pomegranate. The rear legs are less fun: I’m not happy squatting eye to eye with Clyde’s staunch hindquarters (not to mention the large member which may or may not be swinging ominously close to my face) because Clyde occasionally gets an itch in his back foot which sets off a lot of frantic pounding and scrabbling, and something about that lashing leg like a tree trunk topped with a giant iron shoe makes me very nervous. And no-one can say the end result is pretty – the foam padding overspills the bandage here and there and gives the impression of a badly-wrapped piece of furniture you bought for a really cheap price at a garage sale, so we can’t wait for Sunday when he'll sport his new boots for the first time!

Yes, it’s Combined Training at Blade’s Hill and a chance for some more points for their League. No invitation to the awards ceremony on November 25th has yet arrived, but we live in hope! The thing is… it’s not that we need for Pony-girl to win Best Junior Rider, a title she hardly deserves (imagine Pat: ‘you’re ‘avin’ me on, ain’t ya? Pony-girl! Best Junior Rider - ! Lead me away someone, I need a lie down!’) but it’s the thought of our Clyde, the ageing pony who cost peanuts and was reckoned to be nothing more than a riding-school hack, a shabby has-been….. our Clyde who has been steadfast, willing, and the best tutor PG could ever have had….. our little Braveheart who has recaptured something of his youthful glory and shown courage, dash and talent at every turn …. You can see how perfectly wonderful it would be, so sweet a triumph for the underhorse, if he pulled off Best Blade's Pony 2005!

Biting the Dust

2005-10-13T18:22:00.000-01:00

Clyde had two water buckets in his stable that were supplied as part of the fittings, and they were, to be frank, nasty. Although I would not go so far as to say that Clyde is a sensitive sort of pony who yearns for the finer buckets in life, it is no surprise to me that he refused altogether to drink from the one with crusty bits. So Pony-girl and I clubbed our dwindling pennies together and bought him two new matching flat-back buckets we chose from a tempting picture in a catalogue. Alas, owing to a little misunderstanding of scale, he now has two enormous mint-green waterbutts hanging from his stable wall, and a matching feed bowl the size of a canoe.

I’ve been watching Dressage to Music on TV and marvelling at those wonderful horses performing their complex and beautiful ballet in perfect time. This has prompted me to consider what might be a suitable piece of music for Clyde. De Sousa, perhaps? Of course this will make everyone think immediately of silly walks, rude noises and clowns, but that seems fitting for a comical pony like Clyde. Or, possibly, the gallopy-gallopy dash of Charge of the Light Brigade since he is perfectly capable of completing a 6 minute dressage test, in say, 3 and a half.

Showjumping is much more his thing and on his day he is always in with a chance of the placings, even given ever so many Arabellas and their speedy Sprinters out to best him. Last Sunday at Blade’s Hill he missed out on a place in the lowest class by 0.5 of a second, gained 4th place at 70cm, and we had high hopes of a higher place at 80cm. PG had the plan sorted in her head: ‘I’ll take it steady and just go for a double clear, hardly anyone goes clear at this height so we don’t need to rush.’ Cool, wise tactics! I thoroughly approved. So imagine my surprise when the bell went and off they shot like a rocket, zooming around the course, taking off, landing and galloping as if a fearsome pack of cows were at their heels! (don’t tell Tilly.. but..big bold Clyde is a bit wobbly about cows) They were cutting corners all over the place, shaving seconds off their time and making a very bold dash of it and we all thought we were looking at the winning round…. Two jumps to go -
Screeeeeeeeeeechhhhhhhhh! Clyde slammed on the anchors at the foot of the spread and PG took off, cartwheeling through the air in freefall till she landed flat on her back some distance past the jump: she had cleared it by miles. Clyde stood there on the take-off side tapping his hooves: ‘c’mon c’mon! If you get back on we could still make it!’ but alas it was elimination and a sad departure from the arena, to quite a lot of applause: it had been a great attack run, till it came to grief.

“So what happened to the tactics?” I said between clenched teeth, while smiling and beaming widely in a jolly-good-sport kindof way for the benefit of the onlookers. “’Take it steady', remember? Go for the double clear?’”
“I just lost my head,” Pg said sheepishly, “100% my fault. I cut too much off the corner and he just couldn’t make it.”

It was a bravura performance though and we couldn’t regret it. The thing is though, it’s getting near the end of the year and Darkest Braveheart is hanging in there in the running for Blade’s Best Pony while PG is in the placings for Best Junior Rider. It’s all very tight with several events to go, some which favour the Arabellas and Sprinters, not to mention the dread Lucinda Trophy-Tophat, though fortunately there are other calls on her time, and it’s only occasionally she comes to snatch rosettes away from the little people. Every point’s going to count… the invitations to the Award Ceremony go out in the next month. Will we be in…. or out?

Clyde Caught

2005-09-29T11:36:00.000-01:00

There was Pony-girl striding along, boots clacking down onto the tarmac one-two-one-two, eyes flashing, sparks flying. In her whiteknuckled hand were reins, and at the end of them, one meek-looking pony, going clopperclopperclopper. She saw me and let fly:
“All that schooling - ! All those bits I tried - !”
“It didn’t go too well then?” I asked, unnecessarily.
My hand was already going out to pat the meek one, who pushed his nose into my pocket, both big nostrils aquiver with excitement. PG spotted them and glared - “.. and it’s YOUR fault! You’ve spoiled him! Now he thinks he can go in the arena and do any old rubbish, dance a jig on top of the judge’s car if he likes, and YOU’LL still be there with a treat after saying ‘well done Clyde! Good boy!”
Clyde recognised the words but missed the tone and his toes started tapping up and down with joy at the reward to come, but my hand, already half-way out of my pocket with an apple-slice, guiltily froze.
“Well look darling, so it wasn’t his best test but…”
“Not his BEST test?!? Cantered when he was supposed to trot! wouldn’t budge when I wanted canter! Then when I ASKED for a lovely square halt we got a little dance instead - did a quickstep on the spot with his tail whisking round and round like a pompon I tell you!”

PG is always prone to despair and gloom after a dressage test, but on this occasion she had clearly not exaggerated for Clyde’s mark put him near the bottom of the combined training last Sunday and he had to jump his way into an unimpressive 4th place.
In fact, Clyde’s dressage marks have been steadily dropping lately. For a while he was right up there in the top 6 anywhere we went, but now, after 8 months’ careful schooling by PG and Pat, he is lucky not to be last in the class! I sense the poor boy is bored: that we absolutely must give him a long rest from dressage, and let him gallop freely over the hills with the wind in his tail and joy in his pony heart, etc. but no sooner had we made this decision when we remembered….. Sunday.
Sunday is of course the Dressage Gala at our own stables and we’re going to have to be there, like it or not. But we can forget the NagsR’Us Junior Champion title, they might as well inscribe Moppet and Poppet 2005 all ready on the shield, for there is no hope. In fact, we will be lucky if we escape the arena without Clyde stopping to eat the flowers on the way round, something he is prone to do if he thinks he can get away with it and can surprise you with a big yellow dandelion drooping startlingly from his teeth like Daisy the Cow.

As the first year of our pony-owning draws to a close we remember the early days. How green we were last Autumn! There was a time we thought we had to ask permission to fetch Clyde in from the field when we arrived to find him there and we slunk away sheepishly, pretending we hadn’t meant to ride at all. But yesterday when we found Clyde in the field with his mate Tilly, ha! there was no dithering about this time. After all , Clyde is our pony, every stubborn hairy grass-fed inch of him, and if we decide to sell him for glue, pop a Christmas hat atop his ears, or damn well bring him in from the field, we have the right and no-one can stop us! See? We're confident, brave, and scared of no-one! Though naturally I was hoping not to run into Pat. So off PG went to catch him in and I went back to the car for the stuff.
I returned to find PG sloping glumly back from the field, a headcollar dangling from her hand. She quickened her pace as she saw me, waving frantically and mouthing some obvious message of doom and disaster as she hove into earshot: “No good!” she cried, urgently pointing at the empty headcollar as if I wouldn’t notice it was unoccupied.
“No good? What do you mean?”
“He won’t come,” she despaired, “He took one look and ran off down the field to kick Tilly.”
We had to have a shamefaced consultation with Stella Stablegirl who handed us a scoopful of feed - “Oh, the naughty old thing! Try coaxing him in with that.”
“He’ll never fall for it,” I scoffed. “This is Clyde we’re talking about, he has the highest IQ on the yard!”

We stood by the gate, halfheartedly shaking the pan from side to side. Clyde was far away, his big brown bottom haughtily pointed towards the gate. I ain’t comin’ and you cain’t make me so there! “See? He’s just not stupid enough to be fooled by a pathetic trick like this!” I sighed, with admiration.

A pair of ears pricked up far off on the horizon. Clyde swivelled round and shot into a thunderous gallop, four mighty hooves shaking the ground as he pounded furiously towards us, skidding to a halt and burying his nose in the pail, chewing and chomping as he scarfed up the oats in ecstasy. We looked at each other, frankly ashamed, and silently put the headcollar round our dimwitted pony, chaff still dangling from his chops. As we led him off I could see Tilly dancing free on the horizon, taunting him:

“See? I told you not to go, Clyde.”

OK, so maybe the second smartest pony on the yard - ?

Coughing Clyde

2005-09-20T18:32:00.000-01:00

Clyde has a cough. He’s had it all summer and now I come to think of it, he had it last year too before we bought him. It’s a dry-sounding sneeze rather than a tubercular-sounding hawkup, but it’s very persistent once it takes a hold. Pat thinks it’s an allergy and he has haylage or soaked hay when the stablegirls remember, which is, erm, every time they see us coming through the barn at haying time. He seems fit as a fiddle, but it’s something to worry about because it’s starting to affect his performance. There are cough supplements available but these are mostly ‘natural’ ones, which, I feel, will be as much use as me chanting words of power while dancing naked on a hair from his tail, and very much more costly.

The cough seems to affect him most when he has to do something he doesn’t like – dressage for example - or as a seemingly automatic response when he enters the school and has to trudge around in a circle - can ponies get ‘psychological’ coughs, we wonder? It’s amazing how fast it clears up when he’s allowed to canter around at full pelt over jumps.

Obviously the main concern is for our boy’s health so we didn’t care (too much) about his low dressage score on Sunday at Blade's Hill when he coughed pathetically all round the arena, and we spent a lot of time fussing the afflicted one, whose big sad brown eyes informed us urgently that only copious apple-rations could ease the tickling in his stout pony chest. On the way out we passed Lucinda Trophy-Tophat on her mobile phone rapturously broadcasting her delight at her own performance: “Oh! Yah! Ohhhhh! It cantered! It flowed! It was engaged! It was absolootly soopah!! Yah, 72%! Oh, easily 10% clear of the little people! It’s going to be first, first, FIRST all the way!” You will think I have invented Lucinda, but she is for real.

We can but hope this cough sorts itself out before October 2nd, which is the day of the next Nags’r’us Dressage Gala. This very same event in May was PG and Clyde’s first ever competition, in which they came second and third in Prelims 4 and 10, endured a two-honk penalty for forgetting the test – twice - crawled out in shame and finished in second place for Nags’R’Us Junior Champion behind Moppet and Poppet, a hard-to-beat team of small, perfect child on small perfect pony. It will be Pony-girl’s last chance to enter the Junior Section (I seem to remember that Jill never won Chatton Show U-16 Jumping, either) so to go out as Junior Champion would be a bit of a coup! but it’s certainly not ‘in the bag’. Clyde still won’t go on the bit, though he has developed his own variation on this known as ‘pretending to go on the bit while actually leaning on the hand’, which he does so strenuously that should PG relax the reins for the merest second, down shoots his head and he bangs his silly nose on the floor. So entrenched is this problem that we actually bought a Waterford bit, glowingly said to be the bit upon which no horse in the history of horsemanship has ever been able to lean. That was until Clyde tried it of course and it became ‘the bit which one in a million ponies will be able to use as an effective leaning aid.’ That's our boy!

Belle Browbande

2005-08-25T11:56:00.000-01:00

This weekend is our busiest showtime yet, with Combined Training (dressage and showjumping) at our competition centre Blade’s Hill on Sunday and our second country horse show at Cornfields the day after. I’m really hoping the memories of this one will blot out the shadows of Sudeley... Showrings, hotdogs, candyfloss and ponies…trophies and rosettes! Clyde is entering two dressage classes (in a field??), only one jumping class because he will have done two testing ones the day before, and…. our Veteran Showing Class.

I’m getting nervous about this! We have only the dimmest idea of the procedure of a showing class (we learned it all from Jill, who favoured a 'very simple show - a few half passes and a little piaffe, nothing flashy') and, let’s face it, their looks are against them. Clyde’s nose is peeling – his NAF pony-sunscreen didn’t do the job (I suspected it wouldn’t when I saw it had only the sort of ingredients Save-the-Planet Non-Pony-Sis would approve of), his white socks won’t stay white as he will mindlessly blunder his big feet into every mudpuddle going on the way to the showring, and as for Pony-girl, where do I start! The showshirt always did look like a cheap school aertex and came home from the last show looking as if it had been used to wipe out the dung bucket, her hat-silk flew off at a moment of distress on a hack, never to be found, so the German Army Helmet will be atop her head in the ring, and if the judge gives her a 2-minute slot to enumerate Clyde’s good points, I fear she will dry up after 10 seconds: “He’s very…… he’s..….well, he’s.... ” “Next!”

The only bright note is the new show browband, which has arrived and is truly gorgeous, cherrypink velvet and navy satin on leather, made to order in France for the astonishing cost of £6.90 and sent in two days. (This must be my best eBay bargain yet!) But will it be enough to woo the judge? Will she look beyond his sturdy donkey ears to see his champion's soul inside?

But…. here’s a picture from the cover of Blade's Hill's Autumn schedule …..

Darkest Braveheart, champion of PG’s heart

Showtime

2005-08-20T20:45:00.001-01:00

Clyde will be entering his first Showing Class (Veterans) at Cornfields Horse Show in a week’s time, a new venture for pony-girl and me, though not for Clyde, whose previous owner told us she had shown him several times and ‘he was very bored, I'm afraid.’ (translates: Never Placed.) Still, we thought it would a fun thing to do and we think Clyde is very handsome with his endearingly large ears, knobbly knees, impressive teeth, etc so any judge would be frankly mad not to give him Best in Show at once!

Now, obviously Clyde must be looking his very very best for a showing class and I’ve ordered a hand-made velvet and satin browband with little rosettes at each side in our team colours of Dark Pink and Navy. Such browbands retail in normal shops for vast amounts of money, so I hope the bargain Ebay price of £6 for mine doesn’t mean it arrives in a matchbox marked "For Your 'My Little Pony’". He will also have to be scrubbed, polished and shining to the last possible inch, and – this is the thing - there are 10 and a half inches of Clyde which have never had a scrub-up.

Pony-girl and I would prefer not to have to think about this part of Clyde, but among the boxes of little handsized wipes that Santa brought, a full range from BuffaHoofs to MuzzleMoppas, came a set of SheathSwashers, so far unused. I am very ready to be swayed by articles which advise leaving the male organ well alone, very, very ready, but we want to do the best by our boy and we can’t help but notice in the Livery Tackroom that the levels in every other horse’s bottle of Sheath Cleanser are slowly but steadily going down.

Clyde is an aloof sort of pony, arrogant even, and I don’t fancy taking liberties with his dignity, not to mention that the organ in question dangles very close to those big powerful back legs which, we suspect, caused the large dent poor Tilly his fieldmate is currently sporting between the eyes, possibly when she tried to get a dander at his sheath, who knows. I'm brave enough to pick off any piece of straw I spot clinging there, but it's a nervewracking operation which involves me stealthily creeping along Clyde’s side while PG waves a mint in front of his nose. One quick darting snatch under the belly and the straw is in my hand: but a long, twitching shudder ripples along Clyde’s flank and he slowly turns his head to look at me, a deeply thoughtful look which has me leaping quickly to one side.

So I’m not looking forward to sheathscrub day and feel that timing it will be tricky since its appearances are rare and apparently random: without warning a sort of flap seems to open like an aircraft wheelbay, and slowly and silently the organ descends, on and on downwards to its full, impressive length. It stays out to get the air awhile, swinging gently from side to side, then the same eerily silent hydraulics cause it to start the ascent again until it vanishes, flap slams shut, end of viewing time.

No rush to tackle the task however, as before Cornfields Show there’s much to pack in: Combined Training at Blade’s Hill next weekend, showjumping last weekend, Dressage tomorrow and Pony Camp next week. Clyde is lean and fit and gleaming with good health, Pony-girl is happy, busy, full of horsy plans - what a summer this has been: the summer of their lives…...

Please change any bookmarks or links to http://www.pony-mum.net/

Pony-mum.net

2005-08-18T20:51:00.000-01:00

Thanks to my friend Panikos, Diary of a Pony-mum now has its own domain and anyone who uses a shortcut to get there needs to change it to:

http://www.pony-mum.net/

The old one will continue to work for a while longer.

Pony Camp Parade

2005-08-01T20:40:00.000-01:00

Weary of the daily warfare that passes for mealtimes in the Merry household, I reached breaking point yesterday and raised my voice above the constant rat-a-tat of bickering: “That’s IT! we have a new rule! If you can’t say anything nice to someone, say nothing at all!” upon which a deadly silence descended on the table and no-one spoke a word for hours. Progress!

There are no boys who ride regularly at our stables, if you discount the 6 year olds brought weekly to the Boys’ Lesson by bossy, mannish mothers who exhort them to “Ride! RIDE, Rupert!” as their reluctant heirs cling to the pony’s neck, whingeing piteously (this is strange, since many top eventers are male, but there is a distinct dearth of eager boy-riders at NagsR’Us between the ages of 8-18.) Neither are there many adult males, except the odd meek husband who trails around with a barrow as his leather-booted wife barks orders to him over her shoulder. Oh, and Hopeless Hugo of course, whom we mention not. Les Femmes at NagsR’Us tend to be cliquey and Pony-Girl is not popular, confident or thin-skinned enough to be absorbed in, or muscle her way in with persistence and bravado - too old for the young set and too young for the old. The young are like any young girls anywhere: much feverish plotting in corners about who is to be allowed to hack out with them and who is not: ”There’s no way Poppy’s coming with us, not after what she said about me to Henrietta!” The adults are similar though rather more cunning: “I do not think that Margaret’s Petronella is entirely suitable as a hacking companion for us - lovely lovely horse that she is, she does get so very excitable, so let us hack out early and alone, Cecilia dear!”

So, Pony-girl remains at the stables alone riding Clyde in circles around the deserted menage as the happy hackers set off, and while this means that Clyde is easily the best-schooled pony at the stable with a stunning walk-to-canter transition like a sudden bullet rocketing out of a gun (only on the one leg, I forget which), it is rather sad. So I’m pleased that this week is Pony Camp at Nags’R’Us and she is getting the chance to hack out in small groups arranged by Pat, teach small riders to tack up and muck out, and prepare for the end of Camp competitions on Wednesday.

This is all lovely fun, and very Jill-and-her-Pony-like. What a glorious year PG is having and how harsh the winds of change will blow in two years time when work and men and mortgages replace the sunny NagsR’Us world of ponies, stirrups, camps and rosettes! I hope she knows it and is facing each new day of this Pony Year with a song on her lips and joy in her heart. But one never does.

Blue Day, Brave Heart

2005-07-27T20:45:00.000-01:00

When we bought Clyde at Pat’s suggestion from a girl who was moving on to bigger and better things, I am ashamed to admit that we thought we were settling for second, or even third, best. The only criteria he filled on our list of essential attributes for Our Dream Pony were a) he was a boy b) he was cheap (you will recognise RPD’s input here.) He was not pretty, not silver dun, was going nowhere, set in his ways and too old to learn new tricks. He had big knobbly knees and his mane was hogged like the thuggish bullyboy mule we suspected him to be. Plus, he already had a rug, and it was not the jazzy pink and black Mark Todd of pony-mum’s dreams.

How shallow we were! OK he is a bit of a Cockney barrerboy and his face is best viewed with a sideways glance and then quickly away again, but that pony is one in a million. His solid calm means even nervous unhorsey pony-mum doesn’t mind standing by the big-teethed end and is venturing further rearwards every week! He doesn’t bite, kick or buck and he stands steady as a rock for his panicking Pony-girl when fighter planes divebomb his head. And I, no animal-lover, find my heart melting into a puddle at his keen courage and his trustiness and his warm sturdy body and the way his aloofness turns to excited jiggles and desperate ‘me! me!’ harrumphings at one glimpse of an apple. And all that would be more than enough to make him, our very ordinary stocky little fish-cart puller, a pony in a million. So you have to understand that any rosettes our little champion brings home are merely incidental and not the point at all.

Having said that, we find we are very keen to win them and it was the Combined Training at Blade’s Hill on Sunday. First came the dressage and PG and Clyde achieved a good score that put them second (even though, wait for it, PG got a 2 point penalty for forgetting the test again - yes, again. No, I didn't believe it either.) All they had to do to stay in second place was go clear in the jumping section, and while I hid behind the Portaloo (after Sudeley I have completely lost my nerve for jumping) go clear they did, and were presented with the Blue Rosette. (This was very suitable, for PG’s cheap Ebay gloves had been leeching dye all day and she had a bright blue face to match.) She was already pulling off saddle and showshirt when I, rubbing my hands in that calculating way we pony-mums have, pointed out that, since the dressage score is carried forward to all jumping classes, all they had to do was go clear in the 85cm class to get second place in that too.
“He can’t jump that high!” PG gasped.
“Well, Pat always says the only thing stopping him jumping big is err well, never mind that now.” (for what Pat says is: ‘that pony could jump anyfink if only YOU wasn’t on top of ‘im!’)
She was tempted… . “Can I retire if it looks really big when I get out there?”
“Of course! Just have a go!”
I wasn’t half so confident as I sounded, especially as I had just seen the jumps and gone white with shock, but I managed to walk between our trepid team and the arena until the last moment when I slid aside to reveal the view. PG’s eyes came out on stalks - “But they’re – “ Too late: Clyde was off, trotting confidently through the gate with his ears up and whisking his tail.
This time I went into the Portaloo. I was only gone a second and when I came out PG and Clyde were waiting outside which was quite a surprise. “Oh!” I gasped, “Did you have to retire? How far did you get?”
“Glub,” sobbed Ponygirl. “He – glub!”
“Never mind darling! Well done for trying!”
PG sobbed harder. “Oh mummy! He was fantastic! He just flew over them all!”

And he really had, so it was second place again for Darkest Braveheart, another blue rosette to add to his collection and a total of 26 points on the Blade’s Hill league table for real prizes should they be placed at the end of the year. Which doesn’t look as unlikely now as it did when we started out….

Monday, Fun Day

2005-07-23T21:52:00.000-01:00

RPD and Pony-girl are being left together on Monday when I’m visiting Non-Pony-Sis in Oxford. Both of them are sunk in deep gloom about this one whole day and we are working on plans for their quality one-on-one time together -
“Can you think of something nice to do?”
RPD thought hard: “We could fill in some forms together! Bank forms and tax forms and - ”
It was a shame to quell his rising enthusiasm, but “No, no,” I said, “have another go. Something fun for the two of you?”
He scratched his head – this was a tricky one. “I know – I can take her to the stables …..early - and collect her …. much later!”
“That’s lovely,” I said brightly, not wanting to be a damp squib re. his obviously wellmeant effort, “but it’s hardly together time, is it? Let’s have another little think, shall we?”
“I’ve got it!” he cried excitedly, “We could clean the fridge out!”
Not promising, is it?

Google searches on my blog continue to intrigue me: some are predictably fevered (I think it’s time I was a spoilsport and point out that ‘she rides bareback’ means the horse has no saddle.) But what would you make of ‘naughty pony names’? I know, it’s an odd one isn’t it?

We are off tomorrow for a Combined Training competition at Blade's Hill which involves dressage (the dread Prelim 10) and jumps at 75cm, faults to be deducted from dressage mark for an overall score. No idea how this will go, we just know we can’t expect another Dream Day - not unless everyone else turns up on an ancient mule and forgets the test, of course.

What do you mean, 'that sounds like PG and Clyde' - ??

Red Rosettes

2005-07-19T19:16:00.000-01:00

Clyde was having a bath, which he tolerates gloomily but without any of the frisky joy and gratitude you might hope for, considering that it’s no fun for me either - I get as wet as he does and I wasn’t hot in the first place. It was time to hang up the hosepipe, a job given to pony-mum who is entrusted with these less demanding tasks. I was grappling doubtfully with 100 meters of slippery, wet, heavy hoseline with a random sprinkly surprise on one end when I was hailed by a shout from afar:

“No, no, NO!!!!”
Yes, it was the Gaffer....
“Ye can stop that RIGHT NOW!”
.....storming across the yard towards me on attack run. I froze to the spot, standing there with my wet blue knees knocking and looking around for support from Pony-girl: strangely enough she had disappeared, except that Clyde seemed to have sprouted an extra pair of booted feet between his other two pairs.
“Ye NIVER hang up the ‘ose pipe like that! Niver, niver, niver!”
“You show me how,” I simpered, in a shaming attempt to win sympathy, which was frankly a disgrace to Womanhood everywhere, but if your lip is curling with scorn, then you take on the Gaffer in full battlemode.
“Ye DON’T let it trail in the muck an’ slime, don’t ee know that yet? Ye fixes it round the peggle-notch and then ‘ee 'angs the nozzle off the under-dangler – loike this!”
“Ah yes, I see!” I lied as he deftly lassooed the hooks from right to left in a dazzling display of hose-slinging. “The under-peggle and the nozzle-dangler – gottit.”
His faded blue eyes met mine piercingly. “And ‘ee pulled the pipe full down off the tap, did ‘ee?”
“Oh yes,” I said quickly, “Straight off.” I confidently mimed the action of a sharp downward tug. The Gaffer pounced:
“Well ye shouldn’ta done! You’ll spoil the twistle-threader on the nozzle-pipe with youm sloppy wummunly ways, and then I’ll be ‘anding ‘ee a bill for a new ‘un, see if I don’t!”
I was backing away by now, but he had one last trump card:
“And 'ave 'ee seen THE YARD PRICKLE? Summun’s bin usin’ it for wot it shouldn’t nivver be used for, and I bet I knows who it is!”

Not even the Gaffer could spoil our joy, for that was Sunday, the day we went to Blade’s Hill for a dressage competition, Prelim 18 (restricted) and Prelim 7 (Open). Both classes had a big entry, Pony-girl was the only junior and Clyde the only pony (not to mention the only one of dubious breeding, though we vigorously deny the rumour that he was born 11 months after that donkey got into the mares’ field) and yet unbelievably they won both classes – yes, won them both, took two red rosettes and with it the exclusion from entering Restricted dressage, ever again.
Needless to say our joy knew no bounds, as they say in the Jill books, since a first place seemed an unobtainable goal to us when we started competing, and two red rosettes in one day – well, that’s the stuff of Dreams, isn’t it?

It is not easy to blog about success as failure is much more fun to work with, and I hope to resume normal Doom-and-Disaster service after Sunday’s Combined Training event – dressage and showjumping - but for now, just look at Clyde. Didn’t he do well?

Showjumps and Shovels

2005-07-12T21:55:00.000-01:00

It seems we have either showing days that go like a Dream or days that are Nightmares, like Sudeley where Clyde flattened the second jump of the course and PG executed a balletic five-foot mudskid on the point of her nose. Blade’s Hill on Sunday was one of the dream days, and our boy sped round the jumps in the 60cm class, whisking up a clean pair of heels at every one of 7 jumps and straight into the jumpoff, and then he cantered back looking triumphant. Smaller ponies than Clyde look faster with their short legs twinkling round at full flat-out mini-gallop: so when at the end of the class the placings were read out and PG and Darkest Braveheart were in 5th place out of 30 competitors we were so staggered it took me a moment to push PG forward to get her rosette – a lurid orange, but you can’t have everything – Clyde’s first showjumping place in the competitive world!

It was so hot and there was no shade for our poor little pony so we really, really wished we were going home before the 70cm class, quit when you’re ahead and all that, but off they went again He flew round just as nicely but PG mistimed the double in the jumpoff and he clipped down a pole, but, brave and resourceful pony that he is, gathered himself for the next and cleared it all by himself while she dithered, so four faults there, but she came out grinning and patting his neck, ecstatic at their performance. (I will not mention the moment where she whirled round a corner atop a thundering Clyde, yelling “the course! I’ve forgotten the course!”) We packed up ready to come home, keen to get our hot, tired pony sponged, stabled and comfy again, and we didn’t go back for the presentation.

”Let’s just go and see who won, shall we?” I said when all was tidy and Clyde ready to load.
“No, let’s just go home, we’ll see it online.” PG seemed hot and tired, though I can’t think why – she had the easy bit, it was pony-mum bore the brunt of the day as nervous chauffeur, hefty tack porter and doughty muck shoveller.
“Oh come on, it’ll only take a minute.”

Off we limped to the station and there was the organiser putting things out ready for the next class. No sign of a list of winners and times. In her hand, though, was a large pink silk rosette. “Someone didn’t wait around for their prize,” I laughed, marvelling that anyone could be so blasé!
“Yes,” she said, consulting her handwritten list, “Dorkiest Bravetart – 6th place,” and we gibbered and snatched it uttering incoherent thanks and rushed back to show it to Clyde who took a sniff and decided it wasn’t worth a nibble.
.
So home we came with our little brown hero, and his two beautiful rosettes.