The way to heaven is on horseback

Hi everyone well this is just a quick post from me to say happy new year. I have not seen any of the horses recently times have been a bit hectic recently. I have not heard from jack in a few days so i am hoping to hear from him tomorrow. But with jack he just tends to surprise me and i take things one day at a time.  Tonight jacks little brother George is stopping at mine for the night, his mum and dad have gone to Birmingham to see family so george chose to stay at home and keep me company. so later on once the dogs have gone out for the last time we will head back to my house.  So a new year will bring on more plans for the future. so i thiught that i would put my main plans for next year on here :- Get a horse before the end of the year - I have been saying for long enough that i wanted my own horse and this year is going to be the year that i make it a reality. Try and find a good paying job either horse related or photography based. I need some way to fun...

hiya everyone,  well there is nothing much to report here things have been pretty quiet, I've heard off Jack loads this week and it has been nice to have to just randomly chat too :) I like it when he manages to ring me more often but you never know with Jack some days he'll ring other days he won't. He hardly ever rings at the same time and most of the time he never tells me that he's planning on ringing. He quite likes waking me up in the mornings.  Today has been a more eventful day, I'm without a car at the minute which is doing my head in! My car is at BMW having new brake pads put on and possibly new brake disks as well so I don't get it back until 12.30 tomorrow because they have been too busy to manage to sort it today. I had a trip to the hospital with my dad (but that is a post for another day) and I got George (Jack's little brother) out of trouble.  The horse front is quiet at the minute as I am not at my stables until the new year n...

So Christmas is now over for another year, but I decided that I would let all my amazing followers see what I got for Christmas this year. There are other things that I haven't put on here that I've not got around to photographing yet like my wicked necklace off Jacks family :) it's a locket with three charms in it, a unicorns head, a pegasus and a glittery heart. I also got money that will be going towards my horse fund, slowly but surely I will get there!  The biggest surprise for me this christmas was my new lights to use with my photography. I hadn't been expecting them at all, they came with two umbrellas. One is a silver reflective umbrella, this gives more focused areas of lighting and the other is a white umbrella, that gives a broader area of light which is much softer.  Quick Selfie taken using my new lights and my phone, not to bad if I do say so myself, this used the reflective umbrella in front of me (face on) and the see through white umbrella by...

Well it's Boxing Day and today has been a really good day, as is tradition in our family my sister came over today with her partner and my little nephew for a meal and some awesome family time. She was on one but that is just what my sister is like she tends to go on one about lots of random different things.  We had no snow yesterday but today it HAS started snowing, people will know that I do not always have a good record with snow, I am very clumsy and always tend to fall over when it starts snowing, the last time we had snow I spent two full days looking for a miniature shetland pony that had gone missing (the pony was found safe and sound), before that it snowed and I tripped on a patch of Black Ice and broke my hand in three places. So it's safe to say when it starts snowing I start thinking 'OMG'. However this year I am looking forward to it because it would be an interesting time to take some wicked snow photographs. So tomorrow I am on a mission to get sno...

Well today you will get two posts, the first is to share this wicked idea that I saw that Tracy at Fly on Over blog is doing (follow this link). The idea is a social media blog hop. So I thought that I would join this as I often update my youtube, instagram and Facebook accounts more often then I get round to going on my blog! There is also always fun pictures of Gatsby, and just the random things that happen in the life of Amber, so if you want to feel free to add me :), requests will be accepted :). So here are my accounts.  Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/amberrose.wagner Google+ -  Instagram (my favourite) - http://instagram.com/amberrosewagner1995 Pinterest - www.pinterest.com/amberrosehisboo Tumblr - I do Not have a current one but I will be getting one soon :) So when I get one you'll all know Twitter - I have but never use.  Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCitvUAo_2KgwFCH6gTvrBAw I have other accounts but I don't...

Well this post is basically what the title says, going around the blogosphere I've seen these really cool infographics and thought why not try them out for my blog, I quite like the idea of maybe doing a monthly review next year but I am interested in what you guys think. So here's my stats I wasn't sure how to get yearly stats using blogger, so as I'd never done this before I decided to look at my stats since I started my blog in May 2010.  I have also got around to uploading my jumping Videos on to youtube from my jumping lesson not last saturday but the saturday before that it may have taken a while but I have got there in the end, so feel free to let me know what you guys think. They are all quite short clips but they show what we have been working on recently this also accomplishes one of my goals that I set on my blog post called 'The List Part Two'  Above you can see Gatsby and I doing some outline work, this is the first time that we have e...

The title says it all, yesterday during my last saturday lesson of the year I spoke to Fiona and we have decided that we are going to go for it on the 8th March I am going to be doing two dressage tests at Broomfield. We think the tests are going to be British Dressage Intro A (walk and trot test) and British Dressage Prelim 7 (walk, trot, canter test).  Yesterday in our lesson we worked mainly on getting the outline constantly, I was getting Gatsby to work really well long and low in both the walk and the trot before asking him to pick himself up while in the trot. However this did not go quite as planned, as I think i mentioned in an early post this week I have been having problems with my left knee, when I moved on to asking him to pick up and go in to the outline I discovered that I was bracing my left leg and trying to stop getting any impact on it and by doing this while I thought I was protecting my leg, I was unbalancing myself and making my position slightly off. So F...

I had another good morning at the stables this week it's been a busy week for my this week. So here's what I've been upto.  Monday - Day at my stables, I went up to my stables in the morning and helped out I spent about 3 hours there, then I went home and chilled out for a bit before going back for my jumping lesson. It was so good we did this really cool dog leg exercise that I have never done before and thought that I was going to really struggle with, to start with I wasn't being decisive enough. However once I decided that I wanted to do it, it went really well. We jumped small jumps all in canter though and landing on the right lead for the canter after the jump. It felt really nice and I was so happy with the work we did. Unfortunately it was dark so there is no videos' of this. It was then time for pony club, where we were riding again and I got to ride Vettie for 30 minutes. As you guys will know I've rode Vettie lots last winter and the beginning o...

well it's been a few days since i've updated so i thought i'd let you  know about my lesson with Gatsby on Saturday (i have videos but they won't be in this post because I need to upload them and put them on youtube and that could take quite a while).  I started off working with flat length stirrups, Gatsby was forward responsive and nice off my leg, he felt amazing and we were getting the outline again, i then moved on to doing some trot work. In the trot i made sure that he was nice and stretched before asking him to collect and come in to the outline. We started warming up over three trot poles, in trot. I then asked if we could do the exercise where we trot over the poles, ask for the canter and do a 20m circle and then trot just before the canter poles. Fiona said that we could do it and it felt good, all though Gatsby got a bit excited and ended up turning the trot poles in to canter poles. He really collected his stride and we didn't even touch the poles...

Sorry I've not posted in a few days guys, things have just been really hectic with my university deadline (tomorrow) and things getting changed at the last minute! I will be back to posting regularly tomorrow :D. I had a really good morning at my stables yesterday I was there for nearly four hours and I just had a proper laugh and giggle with Elaine, while doing the yard jobs. I always love my time at the stables, but here's my plans for the weekend.  Friday (tomorrow) - meeting with Jacks mum then we are going out for the evening. We're spending the day getting ready and doing some jobs. Then going out to her works christmas do which is motown themed.  Saturday - Stables!!! Now my uni deadline is out of the way I'm going up for my lesson and we are jumping then I am staying up and helping out. Then in the evening I am meeting up with Charmaine for the last time before she goes home for christmas.  Sunday - I get to see Jack, because I went on my own last t...

The title of this post says it all for me, for those of you that have been following my blog for a while you will know that when I first started riding Gatsby at West Hallam Riding Centre (29th September 2012) I was introduced in to the idea of riding in an outline, ever since then I have been trying to get the feel and some weeks I get it then I could go 2/3 weeks and not get it at all and feel really frustrated. Well the past four lessons that I have had I have been riding Gatsby in an outline the whole time, some of our transitions we loose it a little bit, but the majority of it we are in an outline in walk, trot and we are even starting to get it really well in canter. We have even started to get it in our jump lessons which before we never really bothered to do, we were more focused on getting over the jumps, now not only are we jumping but we are trying to get an outline in-between the jumps.  We started warming up long and low, normally I just stretch him out in the ...

So  Equestrian Journey has started this cool blog hop CLICK HERE  about what we will not do with our horses,  ' We all like to share on our blogs what we do with our horses and what we would like to do, but I want to know what you will NOT do.  For example I will not carry a bag of feed into the middle of a herd of horses, especially if I don't know some of them.  I will not teach my horse to rear on purpose.  I will not ride my horse into a field full of loose horses that could kick me in the leg and break it.  Things like that.  I look forward to hearing what you have to share!  I could probably think of more examples, but I need to go to sleep.  :)'  So here is what I will not do with a horse (any horse not just mine).  I would never teach a horse to rear on command, to me it's just really dangerous and something that I do not want to do.  Unless I absolutely had to I would not keep my horse in a stable ...

Yesterday I rode Gatsby again, it's getting to the time of year where my monday rides mean it's already going dark when I get on Gatsby so unfortunately I have no video's from my lesson. My dad also came to watch my lesson with Gatsby which was really nice, as he hasn't been in a while although after he told me that he was quite apprehensive watching me jumping Gatsby as compared to last time we have got a lot faster jumping and the whole process is going a lot smoother.  Above you can see a diagram of the jumping that Gatsby and I did, while it was only two jumps and neither of them were that big it was important for me to do as it made me focus more on my striding, turning, getting the correct lead after the jump or if i didn't being able to change the lead and set myself up for the next jumping. We started off by picking the canter up by K (doing walk to canter transitions), I then cantered around past A, turning to jump the jump that is on 'X',...