The way to heaven is on horseback

Well I am finally in the new house and settled in but at the moment I am too tired and aching to right a proper post, so I'm curled up with a hot chocolate the soaps on and of course the two pooches. So I thought that I would share these two videos of magic with you. Enjoy the videos and i'll be back to regularly blogging recently! Even enjoy Magic's naughtiness it's safe to say that while it was fun to see him having some character he was a complete pain in the ass! Amber, Casper, Diesel and Magic

Well I'd like to start off by saying sorry for the lack in posting recently. A combination of being super busy, as well as run down, tired and ill. Has meant that there hasn't been much time for anything else. This week is going to be super busy but will hopefully be the end of our super busy week. On Friday we move in to our new home. I know that I wasn't originally to in to this house but as time has gone on I have got more and more excited about this house and moving. Plus I'm hoping that it will be the end of moving for a while! Magic is doing really well, he had a week off last week because I was just drained. Moving always takes it out of me and leaves me feeling exhausted but the stress coming up to this move has really taken it's toll on me. But on sunday we got back to work and got on with doing some lunging. He was SOOOO good, we managed walk, trot and canter in both directions. He still tried to push his luck a bit on both reins to stop working but b...

Today has been a long day and I originally wasn't going to post anything because I just didn't feel like writing I was in to much of a bad mood even though there has been some good parts of today, but in the end I got over it and just thought get on with it. This morning I had a lie in as I actually managed to get some sleep, when we woke up Jack and I chilled and watch some t.v. in bed before it was time to go and see Magic. I picked mum up on the way so that she could get some video footage. I'd also got to pick up some bits (but I'll get on to that later). I tacked Magic up and got him ready and he was being a really good boy, he lunged in both directions happily and contently in walk and trot while Sonny was in the school. He doesn't seem bothered at all that there is another horse in the school with him he just seems to get on with his job. I asked him for canter on his good rein and was able to pick up a stride or two but at the minute he is still unable ...

Today has been a hectic day but it's been a good day, I didn't sleep the worlds best light night going to sleep at 4 am this morning. However my mum and dad had agreed that as they were helping me with Magic today that they would pick me up at around 10.30am so that I could exercise Magic while they did his stable. I woke up let the dogs out, and had a bagel and honey before breakfast before heading off to meet mum and dad, I always walk towards which ever way that they are driving (in my head this helps them to save petrol). When we got up to Magic I could see that he was quite excitable, I had text Lynn asking Lynn to leave him in for me while the others went out so that I wouldn't have to go searching for him through muddy fields. This isn't something that Magic really likes but is something that I think that he needs to get used to as he can't always have his own way. I started off by popping Magic's cavesson on and his roller, I decided to leave his br...

This has literally been me today, my mum did Magic this morning as she does him every morning when I have a riding lesson (So really just saturdays). My riding lessons have also now moved to 10am instead of being in the middle of the day. My ribs were killing me and I hadn't really been sleeping very well but I knew that I just needed to get on with it as the old saying goes no pain, no gain. I went up for my lesson with Magic and it was really really good. I enjoyed riding him. We did quite a bit of canter work and Fiona says that my dressage level is in between intermediate and medium. I could ride a prelim test with ease and she thinks that I will slowly be moving up. We did lots of work on getting Gatsby to actually work in a canter in the outline, which hasn't been easy but it was fun. Even though my ribs were killing me because they were in spasm it was a lot easier for me to keep my position in the right place so while I hated the pain it actually worked out really well...

Well for those of you that have been reading my blog for a while you will know that I've always wanted to try riding bareback but that I have never had the opportunity to do it before. A couple of weeks ago I told Fiona that I really wanted to do it and explained that I thought that it would help me really be able to feel how to get Gatsby in to an outline. After explaining this Fiona said I could have a go and three weeks later thats exactly what I got to do. I started out by riding with the saddle, just to be able to warm up, making sure that I could swing in the saddle without feeling restricted, we did a bit of walk, trot and canter work and mainly focused on getting him in the outline. I wanted to make sure that Gatsby was forward but also that he was willing accepting contact and moving in to the outline. I wanted him to feel that he was doing the right thing by accepting small amounts of pressure on the rein and only having to occasionally reinforce the contact and make it ...

Another eventful day has been had today but it ended in wicked horse time at the stables! What more could a girl ask for right?  Mondays means its a full day at uni followed by rushing to the stables and then chilling out. This afternoon I had my lesson on Gatsby where we worked on cantering and oh my god it was amazing. The transitions were not always the best but we are working on that, we cantered a lot, managing to go from one point to the next point without breaking from the canter. We did lots of circles and long side combinations and it felt so good! After the canter work that we did on saturday I was really really expecting my canter to be shocking today but I just managed to get on with it put saturday behind me and do what I do best, enjoy my time with a wonderful horse. We are also now getting to the point where I can work Gatsby in to an outline in-between the moments of canter that we are getting.  Then it was time for Pony Club, we started off the evenin...

Today I rode Gatsby, it was amazing! I have now managed to remember my dressage test well the 2nd one (the hardest one) and started my walk warm up by practicing it. I walked through the whole test before moving on to doing sections of the test in trot. I warmed up for about five minutes on each rein in walk and then roughly four minutes in trot, before picking up. At this point I did not want to ask for the canter because I know that canter work it what wares me out and this made a whole difference to the test. I managed to ride it through a lot more positively. The only bit of canter work that I did in the warm up was half a 20m circle twist. I then moved on to riding through the test. For me I needed to not stress out and just focusing on my riding at the end of the day. I KNOW what I am doing, I CAN ride all of these movements separately now all I need to do is string them together. So when I went on to riding through the test this is what I needed to remember. When I ...

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...

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...

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 ...

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',...

Well it's been a long and tiring few days but I have had a good couple of rides too. I rode Gatsby on Sunday and we worked on the Canter. We did this really cool exercise that was really tiring but it was so much fun to do. We warmed up briefly (as Gatsby had already been rode and I was feeling fairly well stretched and warmed up). I got Gatsby working nicely but very very forward in the walk and trot then we moved on to canter the idea was that we did two 20m circles with three poles at three points of the circle. At the fourth point and over 'x' there was a box. The idea was that we would canter over the poles on the 20m circle at 'a' when we got to the box we would come back to trot or walk, and then change the bend picking up the opposite canter lead (because you're going around the circle the opposite way) to go around the circle at 'c'. We were basically doing a canter figure of 8 with a simple change over 'x' building up to doing a flying...

Really love this photograph this is when we were doing 7 trot poles   Quite like this photograph og me and Gatsby, this was just before a jump (we were doing trot poles in to a jump) and you can see he was getting quite excited. Don't know but I love this photo of Gatsby and I think that we both look pretty good.  Until Next Time A Girl With A Dream

Hiya Guys,  well my hand is no longer in a cast! I went in to hospital on Wednesday to find out whether it was definitely broken or not. I had to get two opinions on it the first doctor wanted to tell me that it wasn't swollen (which it clearly was) and that it was perfectly fine. I wasn't happy with this because I knew that something wasn't right. The second doctor told me that it was a damaged ligament that was catching on my joints and that was what was causing the pain. So he gave me an injection in to my hand and told me that it would start working in three days. Todays the first day that my hand hasn't been as bad, and has been more managable.  Yesterday I got to ride Gatsby for the first time in two weeks and I loved it! It's some of the best work that we have done in a long time and I loved it.  We had a bit of an arguement to start with because Gatsby didn't want to work in an outline so he tried every way possible to get out of working in an o...

hiya guys well it's been a few days and I was planning on updating you all today. Unfortunately I won't be able to go in to as much detail as I want to because I am having problems typing because it looks like for the third time I have broken my hand again!  In the exact same place, how rubbish is that? But they can't tell me because it will not show up for another two weeks on an X-ray so at the minute it's back in a splint and I've got to go back to hospital in two weeks.  Well Saturday I got to ride Gatsby again. We have been working on getting him in to an outline more consistantly but it took me seeing Fiona riding Pumpkin Pie for me to know what it was that I needed to do for Gatsby to work properly in to an outline. We got some really good work in the walk and trot (I have got pictures) and slowly we are starting to get it in the canter as well but by the time we move on to canter I tend to feel quite tired and weak on my left side. We did an exercise th...

Hiya guys sorry it's been a while again,  well I had the most amazing lesson on Gatsby that I have had in a while on Saturday. I'd got the cutest card ever off my boyfriend that morning which just put me in a good mood and I knew I wanted to do some jumping with Gatsby on the Saturday. I told Fiona I was feeling really positive to which she replied where do you want to jump in the school or in the field. We decided to do some jumping in the open field and omg it was amazing! It felt so different but soo good as well. It was something that I had never done before and something that I can't wait to do again. To start with I just had to get used to how much more excitable and powerful Gatsby felt. He used so many different muscles to ones that I've ever used before. We started off walking around the field (which is on a slight hill) and then we moved on to doing some trot work. I had to adjust to keeping him balanced going uphill and down hill because eventually I wou...

so here's some more photographs that you guys have missed out on of me and Gatsby. These are the most recent lesson photographs I have got and in this lesson we were focusing on the canter and keeping it up hill and bouncing. Gatsby was great, I can't say that my riding was perfect but we are getting there slowly but surely.  Tonight was a pony club evening and we were doing the perfect paddock badge. Which I passed so I have now got another new badge to sew on to my pony club hoody which is great! I got everything right and then got half an hour of fussing and cuddling mr Gatsby. I love this horse to pieces! He lost another shoe on Sunday on his way to a dressage competition and it can't be put back on for another week and a half. Which will limit the amount of work that we do. However it is Own A Pony Day on Friday 9 until 2pm. Then Saturday is my weekly lesson and the day that I help out. On Wednesday Morning from 8 until 10 I am also helpi...