The girls down south are looking forward to a weekend without a show. There are only a few weekends in the winter (year) when Selena and Anne Marie are not on the road. Having Angie Huber visit for the week was a lot of fun and a lot of help. There are nine horses in full work if you include Sammy (who lives at home). Eight of them live at the farm and that is quite a bit of stable work and care, never mind all the riding. When you consider how much work each horse has to do to be fit enough, you can begin to get the picture that although being in Ocala Florida for the winter season is the best fun in the whole world, it’s also a lot of hard work.
The nice thing about having Angie there is that she is a lovely rider and has ridden everything in the barn. It has meant that Benny and Rummy who are normally at the bottom of the list got lots of work and did all sorts of new and exciting things. Tomorrow Rummy is going to school his first cross country fences including a paddle in the pond. Very exciting to think he is so confident. I know Selena would not ask him such a big question if she were no already sure of the answer.
There was time for a bit of socializing too. They went to Jennie Brannigan’s new barn opening and were suitably impressed. This photo is of the sound system (those little round circles up on the wall are the speakers) which obviously stirred pangs of something in Selena and Anne Marie since they both took photos of it!
The next outing was a St Patrick’s day party and another new barn showing at Longwood Farm. This was the opening of the Polo Barn and the photo below is of the tack room. Pretty spiffy, it reminds me a bit of the dining area at Badminton, I wonder if they got the inspiration there
Today I was sent the best present. Tamara Housel, who bred ‘Plenty of Benny’, our HUGE and growing four year old OTTB. She very kindly sent me his Baby Benny photos, He is SO cute. We are still doing simple stuff with Benny. Hacking, light flatwork and poles on the ground. His knees are still ‘open’ which means he has a fair bit of growing and maturing to do before we can work him hard.
Benny has had a wonderful life, he was bred by kind people who handled him gently and as soon as they realized he was not a racehorse (one breeze) they took him home and started looking for a new career for him. I was just the very lucky lady who came along at the right time.
