JRFS Last Day

So the vet has just left. Mel is is foot sore and has a cut from a kick. and Liquorice has some bute to bring down the swelling on his sheath from all the fly bites. He is so swollen he looks like he's got a couple of testicles!. (Sorry if you're eating your tea while reading this.)



We can look back on another brilliant day. We started the day with only five minutes trotting (James must be getting soft) Then he asked Liz on Becks to canter a figure of eight around us without changing gait. I blithely thought "oh he is only going to ask Liz to do that because she is on Becks and she is a good rider." Then, when she stopped I thought I heard him say "OK, Lynne, when you're ready, tip him up to a canter." and I thought "Huh?" Then I realised that he really was talking to me and when James tells you to do something you don't think of not doing it - he's a kind of poor man's Pat Parelli and it is a £1 fine after all! So off we went and Liquorice cantered almost from a standstill three quarters of the way around the school! The most amazing thing was that for the very first time ever, Liquorice could do something that some of the other horses there couldn't do! We weren't at the botton of the class for once!


Then we all went out on a trail ride. When we got to the stubble field James said we were going to have a nice trot up the hill. Off we went and Liquorice offered a canter which I accepted as it would have been rude not to! Bella wasn't having any of Liquorice overtaking her so she joined in - they were fantastic!


Next we walked along the top of the field - the views are amazing! Then I spied a dropped wallet on the ground. Now here was a dilema. Do I admit to not keeping my focus on where I was going and get a £1 fine? I risked the fine and told about the wallet! It turned out to be James' wallet so, although I got fined £1 for not keeping my focus I got a £1 reward for finding his wallet!


We dropped down a bit to the top of another field and James suggested another trot but Liquorice had other ideas. He saw a line of horses, a wide open space and thought "Grand National  o'clock!" We'd really found his go button and I had to keep reining him back! When we got back we watched Smoke ridden again while James played some friendly game with a lasso rope.


So tonight we are going to gatecrash James' barbecue and get drunk and have a go on the bucking bronco. If we've got any teeth left in the morning I would be very surprised!
Read about my reflections of the week - http://carrotsinmypocket.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/jrfs-review-2012.html

JRSF Day Four

This morning we watched the working students continue the lesson they started yesterday. They warmed up with a Cartwheel pattern (not to be confused with Wagon Wheels- that's a different thing entirely!) then turned 180 degrees on the haunches in preparation for doing pirouettes. It was a very important lesson in maintaining focus as James was wickedly waving a flag at them to be "helpful" but it unfocussed some of them muchley. It was quite funny to hear James rant after one of them asked James to stop with the flag and to move a cup from the top of the rail. (The correct response would have been that they didn't even notice the flag or the cup as they were so focussed on the task - I expect it's easier said than done though!)


Next we watched a "Hand-over" as James talked to an owner about the start that had been put on her horse and what her plan for the next stage should be. She went off with one of the working students to learn how to get her horse to catch her and Smoke was brought in.


He was soon saddled and James took him off with one of his team on another horse and they rode off around the farm. This was only Smoke's second ride!


After lunch we were back in the arena ready to ride. Merlina was a little foot sore so James lent her his stunning and super talented showjumper Becks to ride for the afternoon. Liz could hardly contain her disappointment!


I thought that slavery was abolished in 1833! James has obviously never heard of Wilberforce - he's a slave driver! He had us trotting for ten minutes each way again, then he had us dragging poles and barrels around and trimming hedges, in the blazing midday sun to tidy up his sand arena!


After that he sent us off in small groups to check the fencing around the farm but we snuck off with Claire Spelling and played hooky in one of the big fields behind the trailor park so she could take pictures of us cantering against the back drop of Salisbury Plain! Well Liz WAS riding Becks so it would have been rude not to!
Read about the Last Day http://carrotsinmypocket.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/jrfs-last-day.html

JRFS Day Three

The day you have to trot for ten minutes on both diagonals (and if you break gait another minute gets added on for everybody) is not the day to discover you forgot to put on your shock absorber bra! Every body has been dreading this ordeal but it really wasn't that bad - I must be fitter than I thought. Liquorice was pretty puffed out though, and he DID break gait briefly to do a poo but James didn't notice despite saying he's got eyes everywhere. Liquorice kept breaking into a canter to try to solve the puzzle of what it was that I wanted then James did ask us to go into canter a couple of times. He showed us how, if we practice this every day and really improve our horse's fitness, it wouldn't be long before we would be able to do the level four freestyle tasks.



First thing in the morning we watched some of the working students get a lesson on leg isolations. They did the "cartwheel" in walk which is certainly one we can begin to practise at home, and another pattern which involved turning their horse using the outside leg and going through a squeeze. Then we watched Smoke get warmed up in the indoor school . Kim was being coached in the online warm-up by James and it was fascinating to see how where her bellybutton was pointing was shutting him down. James then rode Smoke and took him quickly through walk, trot and canter.


James wanted to see us back in the arena ready to ride at 5 o'clock when it would be cooler, and we would need it to be! So after the "ten minutes each way" we went out for another trail ride. James was riding a horse that, every now and then, refused to go forward and would try every trick in the book to avoid it including careering into all the other horses, so that was interesting!


We ended up back at the Royal Oak for drinks again and the manager brought us out carrots again - but little ones this time. James was impressed at how good Liquorice was at being led to a stone and standing still so I could remount. Liquorice hadn't brought his ipad so couldn't use the WiFi!
Read about Day Four - http://carrotsinmypocket.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/jrsf-day-four.html

JRFS Day Two

Today was best day ever! We started by watching Smoke learning to accept the saddle and accept the rider. It was very special for all of us who knew Smoke from the scrappy little bundle of legs that Liz first brought home from James 18 months ago to the very striking horse he is today.

James then went through a "plan within a plan" with us. This will help us see how far we are along the programme for what we want to do with our horses.


Next we watched as the team helped a dressage rider get her horse to be confident in the collection ring with lots of other horses around. Using lots of approach and retreat, and friendly game the changes in the dressage horse were pretty instant and James sent the rider home smiling with a plan for how to keep it going.


Both Jo and I were pretty apprehensive about the afternoon's ride up to the newly cut stubble field both for different reasons. We went through the phases of the "plan within a plan" but my confidence had plummeted and felt that I was not up to the new things that James was teaching us! I was that close to saying I wouldn't go out.


After we set off I started to feel better. Hacking is my thing and what Liquorice is best at. I soon felt well in my comfort zone again.


Liquorice and I were nearly always at the back and the group had to stop and wait for us to catch up several times.


James started to make comments like "here he comes" and "if he didn;t have such a long mane and tail he wouldn't be so slow!" I gave James the "finger" and he threatened to sneak round at night to chop it all off, so I threatened to sneak into his house at night to chop off things that were important to him!" What a merry band of travellers we were!


James took us to a dew pond for us to walk through and I thought "Ha! Liquorice is never going to walk through that!" However, all that on line cross country training paid off (thank you Tracy Duncan 1* Parelli Professional) Liquorice took one sniff and walked straight through. At the top of the hill we had drinks and Mangnums and James asked us all if we had entered the competition to win a day at JRFS. You had to say what would be the best thing about winning a day at the JRFS but I said I couldn't think of anything!


After walking through a copse of trees and using them to practice turning we made our way back down that hill to the Royal Oak in the village.At one time always being at the back would have made me very anxious as I would have thought that I was holding everyone back but James is very good at turning everything into a teaching point and told Jo and I to come to the front and told everyone else to try to cause their horses to go no faster than ours! Some people managed it!


The new management of the Royal Oak want to encourage more horse customers and have installed a stone water trough and bring big fat carrots out for the horses. They also have free WiFi for horses with iPads.
Read about Day Three - http://carrotsinmypocket.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/jrfs-day-three.html                                                                                                                         

Back at JRFS again!

Here we are again at James Roberts Foundation Station. It's been two and a half years since we were here before and there is now a tidy new hard standing area for parking and unloading so there was no risk of me demolishing the barn this time as I parked up.

This morning, Monday we watched James start to start Smoke, Liz's young horse. It didn't take long. After lunch James talked to us about what kind of horse we wanted to end up with (we all wanted a good riding horse) so he went through all the tools we needed like Passion, Vision, and Knowledge, then about the toolkit we need - we are not talking Black and Decker here and these ones are free.

Then we went to get our horses. Liquorice was standing by the water trough, pawing the ground. He couldn't get a drink from it as he had to partly put his head through the fence to get to the water. James said it wouldn't take longer than 3 days for him to get the idea and it would do his confidence a lot of good if I let him work it our for himself. Gulp!

After we had been through all the pre-saddling stages, James told us to see if we could get to the other side of our horse, withour our horse moving his feet and we could do it in a way he had never seen before we could have the week for free.

In desperation I climbed underneath Liqujorice but James said he had seen that before, There was, of course no way that was possible and that he hadn't seen before. It was a ruse to get us to use our imaginations to find ways to test the relationship we had with our horse. I was quite pleased, though, as I had always wanted to see if I could climb underneath Liquorice - don't know why!

So we have spent the evening doing our homework which is learning by heart the 8 Principles of Horsemanship and the 10 Qualities of a Horseman. James says that tomorrow we have to trot for ten minutes on both diagonals then puke over the gate!
Read about Day Two http://carrotsinmypocket.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/jrfs-day-two.html