Interesting Ride on Gatsby

Today my Dad took me to ride Gatsby at West Hallam Riding Centre, he was fresh to start with, I groomed him inside because it was raining and cold outside. So I couldn't see whether I had got all of the mud out of his ears. I then tacked him up.

When I got on Gatsby he was really happy he wanted to move a lot more but I needed to sort my stirrups out as the last person that rode him had really long legs and I couldn't keep my feet in the stirrups at the length that they are. I had to do it while he was moving because it was raining so he decided that he didn't want to stand still so I did my stirrups with both feet out while he was walking around, I then made him stand still to do up his girth. He started off really stretching down getting a low and long frame, while having a 'swinging walk' it felt really good and my hips were less stiff and were willing to move with him. I then bough him up and while he was in the walk got him into an outline during this time I did a lot of transitions but making sure that while he did the transitions he was staying in an outline. We had some really nice transitions. I moved up to the trot making sure that I spent a while focusing on the rising trot but not to long so that I didn't wear myself out as my muscles are not as strong as they used to be, but it's something that I am working on. I also spent some time adding in a few leg-yields. The canter work was not as good as last week, Gatsby was in a bad frame of mind he didn't want to work which he never does in the rain. He kept looking all around the outside of the school and in the fields as well as looking at everything and when he did this he wanted to look his neck in place which made him really head strong, on the right rein I had some good transitions on the left rein I had some bad transitions. He was rushing, becoming head strong and running as fast as he could do. I stopped him and kept him at the trot until I was ready to go in to the canter. I ended with some forward canter on the left rein which is my bad rein. While I had no control over the steering, I had got some good forward Canter, we decided to end it there on a good note and I cooled him down. You could tell that he had walked hard because when allowing him to stretch he put his head really low and long it looked really good. He's such a great boy and horse to ride I love him.

To end with here are some pictures that I've taken today they have nothing to do with horses but are of Orchids, my uncle bought them my Nan for Mother's Day and they just looked really pretty so I decided that I wanted to take a picture of them.