The Dressage Clinic and local wildlife

The day started with a dressage clinic given by Charlotte Bredahl, a very high level dressage rider, down at the covered arena. The participants were 20 women on an assortment of horses, some of which were shiny and expensive looking through to a few that looked like they'd been stolen from the Romanys. The tack they were using was just as varied with some using rusty old bridles that looked like museum pieces, mostly they were riding Western saddles but some were riding English. I've noticed that most people who ride Western do so in jeans and without any kind of a hat, but those who ride English tend to ride in jodphurs and a proper riding hat.

Huge Squirrel poses perfectly

Since Charlotte is such a high level competitor, I was expecting the participants to all be quite advanced riders but their ability levels were as diverse as their horses. Charlotte was wearing a microphone so the spectators were all able to hear what was going on so it was very interesting to watch what was going on. She was introducing them to the counter-canter (cantering on the wrong lead), which some were able to pick up quite well and others struggled with rather more. I felt a bit sorry for one participant who couldn't get her horse into a canter at all.

Woodpecker on dead tree trunk

On the way back up to the house for some lunch, I heard a familiar sound and saw a couple of dead tree trunks with some small birds coming and going. They looked rather like the Greater Spotted Woodpeckers we get at home but much smaller.

When I downloaded the photos I realised that they have the same red caps as the woodpeckers at home, but I couldn't get close enough to see whether they had the spots. Further up the drive I came across two huge fat grey squirrels up a tree, one scarpered but the other froze in place just long enough for me to get a couple of shots of it.

In the afternoon I went back down to the stables to have another ride and arrived just in time to see Candace leading Celebrity along festooned with plastic bags. This is part of his training to become a Willing Partners horse, but he did look rather like a ballerina. He was completely unphased by this though Monty's horse Chrome wasn't at all happy about it. We started off riding around the arena and watching Monty and Chrome do their thing along with Maya who was having some lessons in reining, doing the spins and sliding stops.

Celebrity in Ballerina mode

After a while Monty swapped onto one of the Willing Partners horses and we rode out along the same route we had done on Sunday, along with the new visitor, Anna Lena. On the way we stopped at the house where the deer were congregating and Monty slipped off his horse to give them some feed. It was a different experience to watch them from horseback as they are more relaxed around the horses.

Celebrity was doing fine, plodding along quite happily behind the others and seemed quite content with it all until we tried the same separation experiment. We spread out so that all three horses were out of sight of the others and he seemed ok and put his head down to graze. Just as I was thinking that maybe he was going to relax with it, he whirled round and tried to take me back to the others. It took all my rusty riding skills to stop him from doing this until Monty came back into sight. After that he was a bit agitated and wanted to keep right up the arse end of the horse in front, until we hit the Tarmac again and he settled right back down.

Again my right leg was having none of it when it came time to dismount and I had to ask Candace to give it a shove for me. She's not a big person but she has a really springy energy about her and the leg went over much faster than I meant it to and I ended up dismounting in a rather less controlled manner than usual, whacking a knee on the mounting block on the way (btw I'm absolutely not blaming Candace for this, I should have given her clearer instructions). Both legs were rather aggrieved by all this and threatened to give way completely but I just managed to stay upright by hanging onto the mounting block until they got themselves together enough to shuffle over to the scooter.

By this time it was early evening and the others took off to watch Monty doing an appearance on television. I followed them up on the scooter with my camera at the ready as I've realised that anything might just appear out of the bushes. I spotted a huge grey heron sitting at the pond like a statue, but just like the herons at home, it took off before I could get a shot of it. Halfway up the drive I heard the whistle that Monty does to gather the deer and saw them coming up out of the gorge, across the road and on up to the house.

The Stag looks up 

Two Does checking me out

Doe and her twins looking at the camera

When I rounded the corner to the house there was a big collection of deer on the lawn so I slowed right down in order to not frighten them away. I was sitting there taking pictures when they all started to come towards me, doing their funny slow motion walk.

I managed to get several good pictures, including some of the big stag before deciding to leave them to it. The final appearance was a little rabbit grazing on the lawn right beside the house and, like so much of the wildlife around here, didn't seem too bothered by me taking pictures of it.

The stag shows off his antlers

Grazing bunny

Back inside Monty was on HRTV doing a Join-Up with a horse called Fame who had bucked like crazy when given its first saddle but within another 10-15 minutes had accepted a rider as if it was a normal everyday occurrence. By the time I'd downloaded the day's pictures, dinner was on the table but by then my right hip was complaining fiercely and it was hard to concentrate on eating. A glass of wine helped the painkillers to kick in a bit and then I was ready for an early night.