Heading for competition!

So now we really are heading for the first combine driving competition with Shetland pair! Pretty amazing! Leaving tomorrow and competing Saturday and Sunday. Both dressage and cones are driven on Saturday and marathon at Sunday. I really shouldn't be blogging but packing right now! The Finnish spring is really not helping either as it has snowed a few cm snow during the night :P 

I have packed some stuff already, unbeliveable how much blankets and stuff you have to have with you with two ponies! Today I will drive the ponies in pair so cleaning up the tack must be done late this evening. Then there is packing of the carcaravan also, very handy to live in during competitions!

I just printed and collected all the documents you need, ponies passports, healthy cards for the driver and groom for marathon etc. Really a lot to remember!

Yesterday I tested if I could plait the ponies manes, looks nice here but as I drove it got loose, so I'll let the original pony breed compete with mane loose waving in the wind :) This is Paulette.

We had the vetenarian come to our stable at Tuesday. All 2 yr olds teeth were checked and wolfteeth removed, also Paulette's, Ivanhoe's and Verano's teeth checked and three young ponies vaccinated. Paulette and Ivanhoe had also to be measured officially due to the competition regulations and the document has to be with them in the competition, Paulette was 99 cm and Ivanhoe surprisingly 104,4 cm. We have got a measurement document of him taken in Sweden when he was a trotting pony and then they had measured him to be 102,9 cm, maybe it is the muscle he now have in his neck that makes him 2 cm higher ;) 

Then we even had a friend massageing Ivanhoe and Paulette, she studies to become a equine masseur. If you have ponies working hard you can't expect them to keep fit if you don't take care of them. Both enjoyed their massage and was pampered with Back on Track backwarmerer blankets afterwards. Next week they'll get their second massage after the competition. They were in quite good muscle condition now which I was pleased to hear as they still had a long stand in the trailer in the weekend to the camp and back home and hard training passes both days, so not any very sore points found, just some harder parts in muscles where one can expect with Shetlands, in the shoulders and lumbar region (hope that is the right term). So they had recovered from the training very good!

Hope I have time to put some photos from the competition on our facebook page during the weekend!