On Monday Caroline and I had to get in Ballerina & Belle, to coax Elvis in with his mjum Eclipse as Elvis has dcided that actually he is no longer interested in mum, and was quite happy to stay behing with his friends when we caught Eclipse and tried leading her away. He followed Belle though so we deposited the 2 sisters with their babies in the yard. Then back out to catch Bonita - well Bonita has had very little handling and decided that actually she was quite happy in the field and was not going to let us catch her - at all... So we caught Danica her best friend and led her in and sure enough Bonita played follow my leader and came in too...
First lesson...Headcollars...
Caro managed to get a headcollar on Bonni fairly easily once she was in the stable so that wasn't too bad and Bonni even started to almost enjoy being scritched although was still very nervous. Elvis - well that was a different matter - took a bit of a battle to get close enough to him to get a headcollar on - and there was no way he was going to tolerate touching of any kind!
Hmmm I think - how am I going to get these two feral beasts civilised enough to bath, plait, get in a trailer, oh and tolerate being led!
Anyway Caro was a star and we spent the week practising leading Bonni & Elvis and they swiftly caught on, and then Thursday dawned...
Farrier...
Bonita turned into a wild beast again when te farrier tried to trim her feet. After dragging farrier and I around the yard on 3 legs she decided she'd had enough and went up, up and over, toppling onto me and squiching me against a stable in the process... Oh I was not amused - espcially as she took the skin off her hock and fetlock
Not a happy bunny...
A few hours later Caro, myself and Esther a uni student who has offered her services helping out got everything ready to bath them. Eclipse was first - nice and easy... Elvis... LOL Well he was not amused and behaved even worse than Caramc last week! Luckily he's black so did not require too much washing. Out of principal though I battled on with holding his feet up to wash and the little git was not impressd at all and I'm not really sure I can say I won... more we came to a mutual understanding to stop annoying each other!
Next up Bonita... She was worst of the lot! Spent most of her time on 2 legs and put up a big big fight - lets just say I was pleased she wasn't grey!
After a breif break to feed my kids I came back down to keep Paul company while he plaited with the help of Emma one of our Uni student liveries, obviously I supplied the obligatory coffee and bacon butties!
So we left them all plaited and gleaming on Thursday night - although they all looked a little peed off with me!
Friday morning they had managed to keep their plaits in and hadn't laid in any poo so a quick flick over and we were ready to load... it was a bit of a battle to get Bonita & Elvis in but we won eventually...
The KNN are a lot more organised and professional than ECHA last week with catalogues and detailed breakdown of the scores of each stallion/mare/foal. Very impressed with the way it was run.
Anyway I've rambled long enough so I shall bring this to an end! Bonita behaved very well although lacked a little oomph in the loose assessment... She scored 8's accross the board apart from one 6 for her movement along with the comment that she didn't show enough of it! So that gave her an over all mark of 7 - with some very positive comments about her type, and feminity, they liked her a lot. So she got Best yearling filly (I should perhaps mention she was the only one presented! lol) but missed out on the Best Yearling to a seriously stunning and very impressive yearling colt
Next up was Elvis who was in with 2 other colts, one very nice leopard spotted by Rubin Star (Owned by Lesley on here) who I really liked, and another solid Hamlet colt out of a Hannoverian mare. I was amazed when Elvis was pulled in first with 8's accross the board and one 7 so an overall mark of 8, and a 1st premium, and also Best colt foal. He and a very well grown leopard spotted filly were then re-assessed and I was so proud of my little man when he was pulled in first and awarded Best Foal!
Now I should probably mention that I did a Sar classic during the class... (remember the picture of me being sent sprawling by CAssie last month?) Elvis had been getting a bit cheeky, narrowly missing booting me in the face with a particularly impressive set of flying bucks! And during our final trot up I could feel him about to explode and sure enough he went into plunging mode and I triped on the uneven surface and ended up flying into Elipse's back legs (thank god she's not a nasty mare and didn't kick me!) and ended up on my front on the floor - so damn dignified me!
We then went through to the best in show but the very worthy winner was a superb yearling colt - Amadeaus, who is defintely one to watch for the future!
So I was very pleased with my babies
(If you're still reading well done!)
Pics here http://flickr.com/photos/22788020@N07/2892540077/
.....fantastic results you must be very proud 
