Today was my third visit to Your Horse Live. It has become somewhat of a birthday tradition (as it always falls the weekend before my birthday). Last time my boyfriend enjoyed it so much I decided to take him this year as HIS birthday treat!
We kicked the day off by watching a jumping demo from Emily and Mary King. While I have no plans to jump possibly ever again, seeing Mary King takes me back to being a little girl with a bad leg who dreamed of riding while watching the big events on TV. At the end Mary brought out Hovis – if you’re not familiar with him, his blogs on Horse and Hound document his own medical issues – he has had worse luck than me!
The next thing was the Grand Horse Parade with Arko III, Barber Shop, Big Star, Neptune Collonges and Zion. This was followed by the display of Melody Hame’s ‘War Horse’ clipped horse and the observance of the two minutes silence to mark Remembrance Sunday.
We then hit the shops! There is no denying that Your Horse Live has an impressive number of shops though you tend to see the same coats and boots in about ten places! By the time you’ve had a little walk around, you know exactly what you want.
After that, we popped to the rescue village. It is awful to read about some of the horrible things that people do to ponies but lovely to see a stable block full of recovered ones (even if some of them do look a bit like they really don’t want to be there!) I wanted to take most of them home!
We also managed to catch a bit of Sir Lee Pearson’s interview in the Equine Learning Zone. I just feel like I can make NO complaints about my situation when I think about the challenges he faces!
Watching Ben Atkinson Action Horses was entertaining for both of us. The confidence and skill involved in training and riding the trick and stunt horses is immense. One of his horses decided it didn’t want to do what it was meant to at the end.. ie. leave the arena. It just shows that even if you can ride your horse through dressage movements tackless in a big arena it doesn’t mean it will always listen to you! I have seen them before and each time I do, I go away wishing I was braver!
We also caught Florian Bacher’s dressage demo of which the most interesting part was him pointing a stick at a horse’s back leg and it responding by doing a piaffe. AMAZING! I’m not sure Pea is quite ready for that!
At the end of the day we did a little bit of spending, I was treated to a new yard coat (Mark Todd) as an early birthday/Christmas present and I bought myself a base layer from Black Heart Equestrian. I had seen it earlier in the day and thought it would go well with my blush Le Mieux numnah but I wasn’t sure if I could justify getting myself a present! When I had decided I could, we went back and had a lovely chat with Erin (whose business it is) and her mum. Looking at what she has achieved at only 21 makes me feel really old!
All in all, a good day AND after all that walking, my bionic leg feels fine! As for the boyfriend.. he enjoyed a pork roll and a coffee!
Young Hip and Horsey 