Ardennes Horse Society Breed Show at Chertsey

The Ardennes Horse Society of Great Britain is very lucky to be able to hold its annual breed show as part of the second day of Chertsey Agricultural Show. This is only a small society, and this is only our second annual show, where we do our best to put on a good display. Unfortunately this year my own horses were unable to attend due to a virus, which may have been infectious, and so they stayed at home. However, those that made the effort and came put on an interesting range of horses for our judge Mr R Gifford. He is one of the few judges on the circuit who has personal experience of Ardennes horses as he has owned, bred and worked them. We were pleased to be judged by someone who knows these sorts of horses.		Ardennes horses in the collecting ring at Chertsey
"Unity" - Champion Ardennes of 1998	Mr Gifford gave the Championship to the senior mare Unity and reserve to the yearling Dylan. Unity is an excellent type of Ardennes mare, with a lovely refined head and limb but with plenty of weight and power in the body. Dylan, a weightier type of horse, showed himself to advantage and moved very well. He looks set to mature into a good sort of working horse.
The in-hand classes were followed by a bit of fun in the form of a timber snigging competition with the senior mares Unity, Scarlet and Ruby II participating. This involves a 12 foot log being pulled by one horse, slaloming through 6 to 8 cones in line, 12 foot apart, turning round at the end and returning, with cones around the outside 12 foot from the centre cones. This must be achieved without hitting anything or stepping man or horse outside the outer cones. Easy really, but try it at speed with penalties for hitting cones and it gets to be fun.		Timber snigging is fun but develops the skills required for forestry work.
Incidentally we don't only do this for fun, it is a good training exercise as it simulates working a horse in growing timber, where not hitting and possibly damaging the growing trees is very important. You won't be asked back to extract timber, if you barked all the trees by hitting them with the trees you're pulling out! Several people had a go with three mares and all did well with, as I recall, Mr R. Branscombe and Ruby II doing the fastest clear pull.

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Ardennes horses in the collecting ring at Chertsey

"Unity" - Champion Ardennes of 1998

Timber snigging is fun but develops the skills required for forestry work.