Wet arenas

It's been raining so much that both of my arenas are unusable.  (Both arenas are bits of paddock.)  I have actually officially stopped using the top arena.

All my jumps have been moved down to the bottom arena, and I still do use it, although sparingly.  Yes, it does wreck the arena surface when I use it, but quite frankly that arena is sufficiently not smooth, that I'm willing to put in a few more divits.

Just to give the right picture - from far away, the arena looks flat.  But when I try to set up jumps on it I struggle to make the wings stand up.  Where I use tyres as wings, I struggle to stop the poles rolling off the tyres.  Oh such fun.

The lack of smoothness alone, has an interesting side effect though.  If your horse is not travelling properly, then he keeps tripping.  Whereas, when he is stepping underneath himself, everything is fine.  The wetness just exaggerates that effect, and also makes it much harder work for your horse.  A bit like running in deep sand.

This has left me totally exasperated at times, but obviously has also improved the quality of my riding.  I do have to remember that the soft surface potentially makes the work harder for the horse, and so the sessions may need to be shorter, and the jumps a hole lower.

Like I said though, the work leaves divits in the arena.  It might be time to enquire with some neighbours whether I can use their arena.  The closest neighbour with an arena is more than 2km away.

The trouble with going to Melton

I've entered Dingo into the Friends of Melton Horse Trials, which, as you would expect, is held in Melton.  The problem with going to Melton is this. 

A few years ago, I drew an approximate circle around our farm, and looked at what venues and events were within that circle.  Initially, that circle was quite small, and only incorporated venues about one hour away.  Over time, that circle has grown somewhat bigger, but it still doesn't incorporate Melton.

By daring to go as far as Melton, that circle will expand considerably.  And either, I will come back thinking "that was exhausting, I'm never doing that again", or I will come back thinking "wow, what a hoot!" and forget about the distance travelled.

And the problem with that is, that I will be more likely to do more events, which are further away, and will keep me away from home.