It’s been nearly three years since I last posted a blog update here. What can I say? I’m lazy. Facebook is always just “there”, and it’s just so easy to stick photos up with a few self-deprecating captions and leave it at that. I mean, why do people blog anyway? The photos record the events better than my words, for the most part. For the feedback and approval? Maybe. I mean, I love that people think my horses are cool, because they are. But mostly, I just want to remember what we’ve done, how we’ve done it, and how it felt. I don’t know if I just have a really bad memory for this stuff, or if everyone loses sight of these things over time. But horses are hard work, they’re heartbreaking when they leave you and they’re soul destroying when things go wrong, so I want to hang on to the better times.
Three years. And what have we achieved? I blogged about things I wanted to achieve in 2013, and I think, even now, I’ve only achieved half of them. I’m not counting that a failure though… We’ve done other things, and some things we’ve just done “better” than we expected. I’m not going to blog about the last three years, because we’d be here forever, and I’d never get it all right. I will say, we’ve trained with people I could only have dreamed of having the balls to ride in front of, we’ve competed at the dizzying heights of Medium (as dizzying as any heights can be on a highland), learned to do a ton of new things and swapped horseball for polocrosse.
My face reflects the explosion in my brain. But seriously, Gerd is awesome. I’ve never had training like it.
On the negative side, I’ve backed off the dressage with Fergus – I think he’s reached his glass ceiling. I would be eventing Daemon this season, but my hands are tied by non-horsey circumstances, so that’s on hold. But there’s no limit to the benefits of training, so when we do get out, we’ll be all the better for it. He’s a slow burning project and I’m happy to wait. For his part, Daemon’s happy to do anything, provided it involves speed and small amounts of sickening violence. And that brings me to polocrosse*…
Daemon showing his competition-readiness. Me, not so much.
I’ve been taking Fergus to training sessions since December. I’m hooked. I’ve had a racquet for a few weeks, and I’m having to resist the temptation to play every day. I may give the impression on facebook that I do – it’s reporting bias, I promise! Mostly we hack, school, do fitness work and jump train – in that order. But I’m more likely to film / photo or post if we’ve played around with a stick and ball, because it’s more fun and more interesting right now.
Fergus is, of course, very accepting of the whole affair. He’s not fazed by anything, and certainly sticks and balls aren’t even on his radar of scary things. Butterflies are another matter, but what can I say? He’s a massive pansy about life. He’s been fabulous at training – he’s forward enough that I can get about and learn to do things, but not so speedy and silly I can’t manage him and handle a stick.
Super Fergus at polocrosse training
Realistically though, he’s not going to be fast or agile enough to play with huge amounts of success. I presume, anyway – all the videos on t’internet are at a much higher level than I would be playing, but my horseball experiences would suggest this will be an issue, even at novice levels. This isn’t a problem; Fergus is a great pony to have around to play with, practice on and generally womble around. I also have other plans for him, including more archery and some side saddle work anyway.
Fortunately, though it hasn’t stopped me eyeing up quarter horses for sale, I have a spare, waiting in the wings. Daemon. Dae is the sporty, souped up, yobbish hot-hatch version of a highland. He’ll never match a TB off the line, but he’s probably about as much as I need, or can handle!
Daemon being a cool little maniac at home
He’s going to take some work before he’s ready. He’s not as fit, or as balanced and strong as I’d like if I’m going to do anything high impact with him. We’re thumping on with fitness work in the hope he’ll be up and running for the winter league at least (if they’ll have us, I have no idea how this whole sport works yet!).
He’s going to need a lot of exposure to both the other horses and the flying balls. He doesn’t have Fergus’s background in horseball, so this is all new to him. He’s not entirely convinced with having the ball passing through the air to be caught (oddly, fine with 10m throws, bouncing and shooting / passing), but he’s getting better every time I can bully someone into throwing balls at us. And as for how he’ll be with other horses… I can only try him and see (although he is used to being ponied and bumped around in small groups now).
Hopefully these can all be worked out without too much drama. I think once he realises the trade off is tolerating these, so he’s allowed to learn to spin and launch-start, he’ll be very much on-board.
Yea, he’s a fun-loving little midget.
And, of course, the weakest link is always going to be me. Anyone who’s seen me with a racquet and ball can confirm this!
*Aye, alright. Polocrosse shouldn’t involve any sickening violence… I’m not sure Dae’s sold on that point yet, but we’ll see. Oh sorry… Did you want evidence of his love of sickening violence? I swear he did this deliberately…
He’s a pillock.
The life and opinions of the Hot blooded Highlands 