A Day in the Life...
I thought it would be a great way to start our blog with filling you in on our day to day routine at Jane Foster Dressage HQ. Jason and I live on site with our two Rhodesian Ridgebacks -Kiesha and Zen. Every day starts the same, the alarm goes off and there's a discussion (particularly in the winter) as to who is getting up first! Horses are then all fed and Jason starts on filling up hay and water for the horses who are staying in whilst I start on getting horses ready to go out. We are so lucky to have grass free turnout at the yard which means that regardless of what the British weather throws at us we can still turnout, even if its only for a few hours a day. One of our liveries arrived from Greece last year and was delighted to see we had it as an option as her horse is prone to laminitis. We have also used it for horses on restricted turnout and even horses who are supposed to be on box rest as we can section them down smaller is required. This is so much better for their mental well-being as they get to have interaction with other horses as well as fresh air and a good roll!
Our help for the morning arrives and then the mammoth task of mucking out begins! We stable as standard on shavings and each horse gets two bales a week as I cannot stand seeing thin beds. However, we do have the odd messy monkey (Fergus!) who is much better managed on a wood pellet bed and it's important to us that the bedding choice works as well for us as well as the horses.
I often have lessons to teach or horses to work in the mornings so after an obligatory muck out of a few boxes I will start getting the horses ready. The morning is dispersed with lots of tea and coffee and lunchtime soon arrives. At this point we bring in the horses who are being worked in the afternoon and put the horses out who worked that morning. Skipping out, hay deliveries (lunches for some lucky ponies) and making sure all ponies are groomed and happy sets the theme for the rest of the day.
My afternoon is usually started with riding Bryan, my young horse, and I keep his workload varied with hacking, schoolwork, pole work as I think it's so important for horses to have an all round education regardless of what their speciality may be (but that is a post for another day!). I then teach a couple of livery clients whilst Jason prepares feeds and keeps an eye on the ponies.
It's then time for bringing in all the horses and start putting them to bed. All horses have a different routine and we have horses that are thoroughly washed off each day and others whose skin is very sensitive so we wait for mud to dry and brush off later. Each horse is checked over, groomed and put in their PJs. They all get their evening feeds at around 5pm and we give all horses something so no one feels they are missing out if they are being ridden later! A few evenings a week I will teach both at HQ and offsite, the floodlights mean we can work into the evening regardless of time of year and mean that training can stay consistent.
Our liveries that have spent all day working hard then come up and ride or just to say hello whilst I sort out the plan for the following day, Jason cooks the dinner (I know, spoilt me!) and then it's time for night time checks. We check all horses and ensure they have the right rugs on, skip out, fill up hay and water if necessary and make sure everything is calm for the evening. The beauty of living onsite is that if we (or more likely Keisha and Zen) hear anything then we can come straight down and check what's going on.
Gosh, I'm exhausted just writing that down!