2008 – 2009 Eventing Season Update

By Kate Wood

Unbelievably we are now heading into winter, and yet another season seems to have flown by! I had a bit of a late start to the spring eventing season what with a rather extended trip to Europe. Having sold my pre-novice mare Sunkissed to a young rider from Auckland just before going overseas, I was down to just my two top horses for the season, Scarlett O’Hara and Easy Tiger.
The horses had a quiet run at Northland and Rotorua horse trials, then we had a great trip to Taupo one day horse trial in November with Tiger winning the Advanced-Intermediate and Scarlett finishing 5th in the intermediate. I elected not to start Scarlett in the spring Three Day Event at Richfields as she did not need the CCI** qualification, so my only horse for the December Three Day was Tiger in the CCI**. He finished 3rd overall, a great result and proving that he was ready for the step up to 3***.

The Autumn season kicked off in a much less than perfect fashion for a frisky Tiger at Hunua, but Scarlett did a nice test and jumped clear, only to slip over in a combination and incur 20 penalties for a crossed track in the cross country.

Horse of the Year is an amazing event with a full CIC*** and ** Horse Trial being included for the first time. The 3*** dressage is held in the international dressage arena, a big ask for fit thoroughbreds as it is a huge atmosphere. With Tiger’s lack of exposure to this sort of environment I was rather concerned about his ability to handle the atmosphere. However, he was absolutely brilliant. Having my coach Andrea Raves on hand for a lesson the day before my test, and then warming me up on the day made all the difference.

Scarlett performed her usual accurate relaxed test to be handily placed after the 2** dressage. The cross-country was designed by the very clever John Nicholson, who has an ability to build tracks which frighten the riders and thrill the crowds, but actually jump very well. It was really big and certainly a step up for Tiger, but he jumped beautifully and we were very pleased with his efforts. In the showjumping Tiger finished 4th, with the much sought after 3*** qualification safe in the bag.

At the World Cup qualifier at Kihikihi, the cross county was again designed by John Nicholson, and if HOY looked big, the World Cup was enormous! Tiger did another pleasing test, and then thrilled us all with a fantastic clear cross country. The show-jumping was the biggest track he has jumped, with World Cup height being 1.30m. He completed a fantastic event by being one of only 4 to showjump clear, and finishing 7th overall.
Next at Taupo for his the CCI***. Another really good test proving that he is now comfortable at this dressage level. The cross country was smaller and less technical than his previous 2 starts, but we fell at the 3rd to last fence, having jumped all the challenging fences and thinking we were home free! As this was the last event for the season it will make for a long winter pondering just what went wrong!

After HOY I made the very difficult decision to sell Scarlett O’Hara to America. This is never an easy decision. She'll be ridden by 14year old Wesley Seitz.
The plan over winter is to keep improving Tiger’s dressage, with a view to possibly taking him to Adelaide for the CCI**** in November. This will very much depend on how his dressage goes, as the 4**** test is a big step up and we really want to keep this exciting horse for bigger things in the future. Watch this space….! I also have an exciting young horse, Aotearoa, whom I purchased locally in January.
I have kept my horses on TuffRock Conditioner Plus, and am constantly impressed with the condition of the horses. It really helps their topline and they are always so shiny. I love giving it to the new horses off the race track, they change from skinny weak looking animals into pictures of health in no time at all – see photo of Aotearoa!

I have also started using the new TuffRock Non-Medicated Poultice. In January I had a young horse with a bad wire cut to his hind leg which was really swollen. I simply smothered the leg in the poultice, and within 2 days it was normal size again. The leg has healed with no scarring which was amazing considering the state it was in. I highly recommend having the poultice on hand for numerous uses, from sore tight backs, to cuts and abrasions, or for poulticing legs after fast work.
I am also convinced that the best jodhpurs on earth are the Ovation EuroWeave breeches, which come in the coolest range of colours. The breeches have a dry-seat fabric which makes them so comfortable on hot days. The latest range have a full leather seat, very different and classy. The only difficulty is choosing from the huge colour range!
Thanks so much to HorseTackNZ for the on-going support, may the winter be short and dry and next season successful!
 

2009 Endurance & CTR Season Report

By Caroline Barber

I started using TuffRock Conditioner Plus when I was kindly sponsored by TuffRock & HorseTackNZ earlier this year. The horse I have started campaigning last season is Golden Shelter Tai Sharn, also known as Sooty. He is a 5 year old, 15.2hh Pure Bred Arabian Gelding. As it was his first season out on the endurance trail, he had a pretty laid back one, however he still chewed through the k’s, completing 444k’s inclusive of both CTR and Endurance including one 80km Pre Novice ride.

Suzanne, Caroline & Steve Hurley from TuffRock Pty Ltd Australia @ HOY 2009

When I first started feeding TuffRock Conditioner Plus to Sooty, I found noticeable changes after two weeks of use. His coat started to look very glossy along with his tail. The second thing I noticed was his mane. It used to be pretty fine and limp and did not really grow much at all however after about a month on TuffRock, his mane really started taking off and soon I was trimming it regularly.

As you can see by the photos, a picture paints a thousand words. These were taken of Sooty at the National Endurance Champs at Easter. He is in very good condition here, (Sooty had been on TuffRock about 2 months at this stage) having had a couple of tough training runs before the event, he is seen in very good health, looking well covered with mane, coat and tail in impeccable condition. Sooty ended up winning the Best Presented Horse Award in the CTR event, which is judged on Mane, Tail and Coat condition.

After seeing such great results with Sooty, I decided to test TuffRock Conditioner Plus on my Stallion Merimindi Finale. As we know, stallions are very active horses and a lot of the time they look pretty light in
condition.

After the summer Finale was looking pretty lean and I noticed his coat was not looking its usual glossy self. I had been feeding Finale sugar beet, extruded barley, lucern chaff and vitamins and minerals to try and get some weight back on him. It wasn’t really working!

So I decided to run Finale on TuffRock for two weeks to see what improvement would be made with him. I was completely amazed by the results. Finale started to gain weight after 2 weeks, his ribs disappeared and he ended up getting a wee belly and of course his coat turned so glossy I could nearly see my reflection!

So all and all, the tangible benefits of this product stand true. The intangible benefits
(what we don’t see I have no doubt are working also).
I look forward to seeing more results with Sooty next season. The more events he does, I am sure the more I will notice the benefits of this product.
I would certainly recommend this product to any one wanting to prepare their horses
for the show ring, no matter what the horse; it takes a lot of the preparation away.

Also for trouble horses that are not gaining weight and there is no simple explanation why, and lastly I think this product is ideal for any endurance horse. If you read the list of benefits gained from this product, every single one of them relate to the endurance horse. There are just too many on the list to not take a closer look.
If you put your horse on TuffRock, you will be able to cut down on quite a lot of things
you feed your horse as TuffRock is a broad spectrum horse supplement. Make sure you contact TuffRock and they will give you a list of everything the product covers.

I have also been using the TuffRock Non-Medicated Poultice on Sooty at events and also on other horses at home that may graze themselves in the paddock. Immediately when this product is applied to an area to be treated, there is an instant look of pain relief in the horses face.

Because the poultice is actually energized, it is working as soon as it hits the surface of the skin. It also draws out toxins, this noticeable where the poultice does not dry in certain areas when applied.

Of course as well as the increased healing properties of this poultice it is definitely a good one to use both with horses in competition or as a first aid poultice at home.

HorseTackNZ & TuffRock Pty Ltd Australia wish to thank Caroline, who is Endurance NZ Manager, and her wonderful helpers for the fine job they did of putting together the TuffRock National Endurance Championships 2009 Awards Dinner - which was enjoyed by all. All the best to the riders and their horses for the next endurance season.

2008 - 2009 Endurance Season Update

By Andrea Smith

Murray, Brigitte, Andrea, & Georgia Smith

with Steve Hurley from TuffRock @ HOY 09

We had a bit of a disaster before the 2009 National Endurance Championships - but we were very grateful because it could have been so much worse, and our horses are now all totally fine.
Murray drove down on his own with the horses (kids and I had other things on during the day and went down later), anyway, the weather was awful - blowing a gale and raining, so the truck was rocking all around and it wasn't until he got to Fielding to put diesel in the truck that he found them all in a pile!! He thought his horse was dead, he was still tied up but Georgia's horse was lying on top of him!! It was horrible for him, he got them out (in a different order to what they went on), rang to tell me, and went straight around to the vets. They couldn't do much really, didn't want to give them any drugs as such because of withholding periods. So, Murray continued to the Nationals and started working on them. The amazing thing was they didn't appear stressed, went straight back on the truck, all ate when they got to the venue and appeared as happy as. They all had pads on their front feet - we think one must have slipped in the wind and has taken the rest out.
The kids and I got there that night and I couldn't believe how happy and relaxed they seemed. Georgia's horse had a closed eye, fat leg high up (they all had boots on which had protected them incredibly well), bad swelling on her back and sides as well as a lot of general skin off. Murray's wasn't as bad, had a bit of a fat leg, but a very bad scrape right down his back where the saddle sits from the partition when he got up. Brigitte's looked the worse in some ways - totally skinned on both hips, but nothing really in the way.
So we went to work with TuffRock Non-Medicated Poultice - it was amazing, I can truly say that from experience now. The swelling went down at an amazing rate, I was frightened the poultice would stick and be hard to get off - it wasn't, it was easy to sponge off which is so important with them being so sore, and I was shocked at how good the wounds looked underneath. So we just kept applying it and doing all we could. Anyway, there wasn't enough time to get Murray or Georgia's to a stage where we were happy to start them, Georgia's still had a fat leg even though her eye was perfectly fine and most of her other injuries had improved so much, and Murray's we felt couldn't have handled a saddle on to do 160km - we had to think of the big picture and getting them right. Brigitte had an extra day and we were confident by then her pony could handle it. The longest ride her pony had done up to that stage was 90km. She is a great pony, her one weakness we felt was, she is a slow somewhat picky eater, so often looks a bit tucked up after an 80km ride...... well she went amazingly (she had been on the TuffRock Conditioner Plus since we got home from HOY) - she scoffed all her feeds, looking for more, finished 120km, could have gone out again. It made a huge difference to her. I think this is a big selling point with TuffRock - with the longer rides, this stuff makes all the difference.

We are now really excited about next season - with our horses on it all the time it can only get better. So thank you, we will be as much support to you as we can.
Murray got a 160km ride on someone else's horse - we used the Non-Medicated Poultice on all the horses' legs after the ride...there was quite a lot of concussion on their legs from the 160km, they were quite puffy the next day - after the second application of the poultice it was all down - legs felt normal. So the people noticed and were impressed, I think they will be purchasing some.

Brigitte collecting her prize at the TuffRock National Endurance Championships 2009 Awards Dinner

Brigitte and her pony won the Best Conditioned Award as well. She started the race conservatively, it was her first night ride, she was on her own at 2am..... we told her to start slow and careful. She was near the end coming in on the first loop, her pony pulsed down immediately each time passing many others through the vet ring and by the end she was right up the front of the field....we couldn't have been happier with how her pony went (and her too of course).

ESNZ Awards 2009:

Georgia won the National Junior Horse and Rider award, Brigitte was runner up.