The cold snap

                I’m often asked how we cope in the cold snaps and what happens when the snow falls.  Well, it makes for jolly hard work all round, no holidays here.  The staff become heroes just getting to work and it can take a good couple of hours to clear the walker and pathways to make sure it is safe to get horses out.  Keeping them all going in some capacity is key.

                Below is my first use of the little video camera I was given by Katie for Christmas (hence the rather amateurish use of it!).  Here I am cantering Benny up the nearby bank in the snow (not sure who is blowing more - me or the horse!). 

                During the cold snap it really is like working in a giant refrigerator all week.  The all weather gallops were out of use and the roads were impassable for a few days so there isn’t much we can do.  We did de-ice the walker twice a day, every day and salt the outdoor school and we led the horses through the field to the walker and put the time to good use by doing plenty of lunging in the outdoor school.  Benozzo Gozzoli was the only horse we ran as he was having a spin on the all weather on the flat to keep him ticking over.

                To be honest, it hasn’t done the horses any harm by having an easier week and the lunging has done them all good.  Also, since the freeze there hasn’t been much in the way of races to run them in with so much of racing being off because of the snow and then water logging and now pretty heavy ground.   We won’t have much to run for a week or two as a consequence but I am sure they will run well when they do.

The yard in snow

Cantering Benozzo Gozzoli