So this morning started like the past two days with a light rain. The dams are flooding over and the rain keeps coming. The river running across the Perseverance land is very full currently. Two of the horses Mabruk and Matrix lost their footing whilst treading across the causeway for their morning feed. Poor Bob had to jump in and help them to get back out again so he also got a soaking. They are both fine though and were happy to get thier morning feed after the ordeal.
It was to be the last day of the Kikkuli test for Amir, Magic and Nile. We would be trotting for 12kms, cantering for 4.8kms, letting the horses recover and then cantering for 7.2kms. We headed from the farm towards the monotonous circuit and carried on towards the neighboring farm. We went through the Sundays river and up the other side to add some more kilometres to our distance. At this point I was very glad to be riding Nile, who is over 15hh in height, as he was the biggest out of the three horses. Poor Ashley was on the shortest so got wet boots and chaps whilst wading across. After going for a short distance the other side, we doubled back to cross the river again. Nile went first and we seemed to drift sideways as went finding a bit of a dip so my boots did get a little damp. Amir also went through fine. Ashley and Magic were last to come across and somewhere along the route through Magic lost his footing and the current did not help matters. Ashley got a dunking up to his waist but was fine otherwise, although very concerned about how soggy his phone was. Magic clambered out and was soaked from ear to tail but was also fine. There was, however, some sun out by the time we were riding so at least there was no rain to get further wet and cold from. We carried on our ride coming to the main road and being able to canter along its grassy verges. We eventually crossed back over the main road to head down the road leading to the farm. Nile cantered happily along back towards home at a relaxed pace, with Amir and Magic following behind. He seemed to fly along in canter with such ease and giving me a very comfortable ride home. The three horses have done about 95km across 4 days and will now go on a 2 week holiday before being brought back into work to begin their training programme.
In the afternoon, Ashley and I took Mercury and Liberty out for some training. We went about 18kms up the road and back due to most of the tracks being slippy. We managed a consistent pace in trot, although canter is yet to be Liberty's strong point as she prefers to go along in a long striding trot. But on the way back I found that she would canter on more when being head to head with Mercury and did get a little competitive.
Hopefully the sun will appear again tomorrow and some of this water will dry up.
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