Just a little lazy

Yeah, So its summer. I've been lazy about riding and the sticky hot weather does not help. Tonight however I am a free woman, as College is finally finished! I'll be sad to leave many wonderful tutors and fellow students behind but I now have some very firm friends for life who I will certainly make an effort to catch up with regularly. Lisa will come riding with me as well as taking our pet rat passion to the market, Kathryn is interested in trying to ride and lives just up the road and as for Emma, well shes family, so I'm stuck with her.

Tuesday evening was a lovely day for the beach so Lisa and I headed down for a nice ride. The water looked lovely and cool and I got Nell in further than I ever have before. I might even get her to swim with me someday. Mum and I will be speaking to Chris Cook this week about training Nell to pull a trap, which is going to be my big summer project.

This autumn we are also hoping to hitch a ride up to the Joe Moyle's sale with the Tregurtha lot and have a good look around. Who knows - we may bring something home if I can find another job to support an extra beastie. I have been planning for a while to get a quiet youngster as a first breaking project. Something hairy, a bit lazy and about the age of 3 but unbroken. The plan is to break it in then ride it out for 6 months to hopefully make a profit - although the experience is always good even if I never make any money!

Helen's friend has a haflinger stud colt who should be ready for breeding by next spring. providing I can get Nell down to a fair weight I am hoping to breed her at the beggining of summer, ride and drive her for a few months then turn her away for the winter, during which I might fit in a breaking project youngster. It would definately be a keeper, either to replace Tralee, when he gets too sore, if it's a colt or as something with a bit more go for myself if it's a filly. Even Helen said that our old horses won't last forever and that if I am going to have one last foal from Nell it better be soon. after all she will be 19 next year although she could be older. You'd never know it though looking at her! I know the Westfalen Haflinger Association have her on record somewhere because her brand number is unique to her, but as most people will they are trying to weedle more money out of me (250 euro to be precise) for a full DNA test that she should not need! It would be helpful if I could get her information that would allow her foal to be registered, but if I can't then its not going to be sold anyway so it doesn't really matter to me if I know its pure. Anyway though, that's a long time off so I shan't think about it too much or get my hopes up. I'm just going to look to the near future first and work on getting her in a trap and driving.