Indian Summer, End Of Treasure Hunt and Rugs!

And so to the weather!!  Its been an Indian Summer, almost making up for the lack of real Summer.  Apart from a couple of Storms, the weather for September has been glorious (possibly hotter than the real Summer).  The mornings have been cooler, so its on/off with clothes. The summer shorts and crocs have been put away, and revived again.  THEY (whoever they are) say October will be up in the mid twenties again!!!! For those of us with Natives, who live out 24/7 naked its a bit of a pain.  They are growing their furry winter coats and sweating like a whore in church.

Which brings me onto rugs.......I have actually seen some horses already wearing rugs!  Rugging a horse will NOT stop the growth of winter coats.  Its the amount of daylight hours that does that!  Horses are designed to live outside in all weathers. They are most comfortable between 5c and 25c. Ok in mid winter if you have an elderly, or clipped horse, by all means rug it.  But right now even the night time temperatures haven't been below 8c.  They must be relieved when the sun goes down and the temperatures drop. 

And so its the end of the Top Barn Treasure Hunt Part 2. This time we had 30 Treasures to find. In multiples of 3.  To complete the Challenge we had only had to find 10 sets of 3 Treasures, but the hardcore went on to find 90 treasures!!!  RESPECT!!!!  Charlie and I completed 18 sets of 3.  We logged other treasures and finished with 62.  We also had to complete 5 tasks and declare miles in multiples of 10.  We only declared 20 miles (as its mostly on foot) and finished on 22.8 miles.  We did complete the 5 Tasks, but in our own way.  Charlie can be quite a handful in hand out on the lane.  My dodgy lungs and dicky ticker struggle when he's in racehorse on crack mode.  So I am most grateful for the help of Meg, who kindly came out for a walk with us, leading Mini the Shetland as a calming influence on Charlie and also took a shed load of pictures of treasures. Charlie was tacked up and I even had a hat on, just in case he was calm enough for me to ride a bit.  But he wasn't.  However, we did manage a few steps ridden in the Playpen (formerly known as The School) and a few more steps up the track. Well out of our comfort zone!!

The International Horse Agility Summer Of Sport has also finished and we all got our results. Charlie excelled himself with 3 x 1st, a 2nd and a 3rd. Aswell as getting a 1st in the August Liberty Class. The class I am most proud of is Horse and Hound.  We came !st with a score of 100/100.  The Hound in question is called Luna. She belongs to my friend Sarah.  She was rescued from Cyprus or somewhere, and had been in about 5 homes. Luna was on her last chance. Apparently she was vicious! I just happened to be dog-sitting and at the last minute decided to try the Horse and Hound class.  We had a 20 minute practice while I sorted out the camera angle, and 20 minutes to film the class. Both Charlie and Luna were foot perfect.

And so onwards to October.  A month I love.  The trees turn a fantastic colour, the nights are cooler and its Halloween Month.  Hopefully the flies will die off or hibernate.  I plan to carry on doing ridden work with Charlie. My goal is to complete an Equigility Class before the year is out.