Kim Chapman Blog: Preparing for winter

Well, since my last blog winter has definitely arrived and with that, the cold dark mornings of mucking out are back! The horses could still be out 24/7 for another month, but Liz being the wimp she is (and me feeling sorry for her!) she’s now into the winter routine of out in the day and in a nice warm cosy stable at night, and the first thing she does is head straight for the Horslyx!

We did have a nice sunny day for the last showing show of the season, which was also my birthday! So I was extremely happy to come away with a 4th in Best Conditioned and a 3rd in Best Part Bred! She also travelled like a dream, definitely the best she’s travelled since the incident we had earlier in the year, so hopefully that’s well and truly behind us now.

The idea was to then turn Liz out for a few weeks after the last show, before winter hit and before clipping, but being the little piggy she is, she gorged on the grass, made herself colic, so is now on restricted turnout, which is really interfering with exercising her with work commitments on top! Horses! She’s extremely hard to work if she’s been cooped up in her stable, she tends to fight you instead of working, so I’ve learnt it’s better to exercise her coming in from the field! But because she’s bloating on this last growth of grass – I’m a bit stuck!

The winter league dressage starts again next month, however it’s looking unlikely we’ll be anywhere near ready for the first one, so the plan is to aim for the January (can’t believe it’s nearly 2015!) one and hit 2015 running!

Watch this space!