Scone Stud Tour
Well.. last week I was away in Scone. I had to go for TAFE. I drove up on the Sunday (four hours is a lot of driving... specially when it's hot and your car doesn't have air conditioning) and got there in time for dinner with all the other people. I met our two teachers as well as 5 of the other students. Two more students arrived on monday morning.
On Monday we went on a tour of three studs. These are all big Thoroughbred studs (they breed horses for racing).. and in NSW we have the three biggest Thoroughbred studs in Australia, and they are some of the biggest in the world. We went and saw one of these three, which was incredible. It is owned by the people who own Inghams Chickens... they employ people full time just to do their gardening, they have their logo mown into the lawn in front of the house... just to give you an idea of how incredibly wealthy these people are. The property is around 6000 acres... it is just huge. The other two studs were smaller, but they would still breed horses that are worth millions of dollars.
From Tuesday till Friday we were on work experience at a stud. There were two students to each stud. I was at Tooloogan Vale Farm with a woman called Sharie (said Sheree). Tooloogan Vale has about 140 mares (female horses) and were expecting about 70 foals this year. The farm is about 700 acres. It was pretty cool, the people there were just great and I had heaps of fun! Hehe I also now have an idea of where to get cheap horses, and they gave me a reference, which is also pretty cool.
I got home from Scone at about 5:30 on friday arvo, plaited my horse (who was at a friend's place so they could work him during the week) and went home. On Saturday I woke up at 3:30 (yes in the morning) and went back to my friend's place so that we could leave for canberra, where we were going to an event. I rode my horse when we got there (which turned out to be a good idea cause he was absolutely nuts).. then got on him later for my dressage test, he was a nutcase while i warmed up, but the moment we got into the arena he suddenly decided to be good...REALLY good... we ended up getting 71% and were in second place after the dressage (bearing in mind, this is in the one*, against all the professionals... it was pretty exciting)... We showjumped on Sunday and knocked two rails, which was a bum and we slipped to 8th place... cross country was good until I got to one jump on the wrong stride and my horse hit his legs on the jump (which if you can imagine causes the horse to go into a bit of a nose-dive) so I nearly fall off but somehow stay on, he somehow gets his legs back under him, but we'd already gone past the next jump, so they said that we had a refusal at the next jump (impossible, cause we never faced it in the first place) and wasted a heap of time... so we slipped to 21st.. BUT they decided to bring in a junior one* class... which consisted of three people.. lol... after showjumping I was winning it, but after cross country I was second... so it ended up being alright! Hehehehe.
Anyway, that's the last week for you... oh and of course I'm back at work... Sandy said I should have at least half the day off yesterday because it was a public holiday but I'd missed working at her place while I was at scone so I stayed the whole day.
Okidokie, have to type up my assignments for TAFE... TATA
---->by the way, a note to steph: we went out to dinner on saturday night while we were in canberra, and I was directing, and after getting lost and ending up at a cemetary then parliament house, we drove past a sign that pointed to ANU... so now I actually know how to get to your uni, even if i haven't been there and couldn't visit you...
OK now really bye!
On Monday we went on a tour of three studs. These are all big Thoroughbred studs (they breed horses for racing).. and in NSW we have the three biggest Thoroughbred studs in Australia, and they are some of the biggest in the world. We went and saw one of these three, which was incredible. It is owned by the people who own Inghams Chickens... they employ people full time just to do their gardening, they have their logo mown into the lawn in front of the house... just to give you an idea of how incredibly wealthy these people are. The property is around 6000 acres... it is just huge. The other two studs were smaller, but they would still breed horses that are worth millions of dollars.
From Tuesday till Friday we were on work experience at a stud. There were two students to each stud. I was at Tooloogan Vale Farm with a woman called Sharie (said Sheree). Tooloogan Vale has about 140 mares (female horses) and were expecting about 70 foals this year. The farm is about 700 acres. It was pretty cool, the people there were just great and I had heaps of fun! Hehe I also now have an idea of where to get cheap horses, and they gave me a reference, which is also pretty cool.
I got home from Scone at about 5:30 on friday arvo, plaited my horse (who was at a friend's place so they could work him during the week) and went home. On Saturday I woke up at 3:30 (yes in the morning) and went back to my friend's place so that we could leave for canberra, where we were going to an event. I rode my horse when we got there (which turned out to be a good idea cause he was absolutely nuts).. then got on him later for my dressage test, he was a nutcase while i warmed up, but the moment we got into the arena he suddenly decided to be good...REALLY good... we ended up getting 71% and were in second place after the dressage (bearing in mind, this is in the one*, against all the professionals... it was pretty exciting)... We showjumped on Sunday and knocked two rails, which was a bum and we slipped to 8th place... cross country was good until I got to one jump on the wrong stride and my horse hit his legs on the jump (which if you can imagine causes the horse to go into a bit of a nose-dive) so I nearly fall off but somehow stay on, he somehow gets his legs back under him, but we'd already gone past the next jump, so they said that we had a refusal at the next jump (impossible, cause we never faced it in the first place) and wasted a heap of time... so we slipped to 21st.. BUT they decided to bring in a junior one* class... which consisted of three people.. lol... after showjumping I was winning it, but after cross country I was second... so it ended up being alright! Hehehehe.
Anyway, that's the last week for you... oh and of course I'm back at work... Sandy said I should have at least half the day off yesterday because it was a public holiday but I'd missed working at her place while I was at scone so I stayed the whole day.
Okidokie, have to type up my assignments for TAFE... TATA
---->by the way, a note to steph: we went out to dinner on saturday night while we were in canberra, and I was directing, and after getting lost and ending up at a cemetary then parliament house, we drove past a sign that pointed to ANU... so now I actually know how to get to your uni, even if i haven't been there and couldn't visit you...
OK now really bye!
MoNoPoLiSeD @ 6:40 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home