The way to heaven is on horseback

So Magic is doing really well. About two weeks ago we had stumbled across an issue while lunging him, he seemed to lunge perfectly going clockwise (right lead) but seemed to struggle going anti-clockwise (left lead). I came up with the idea that maybe it would be easier to try and lunge him on his bad rein first so that he would see going on his good rein as a kind of reward as he seems to generally enjoy going that way, and so far it is safe to say that it has worked a treat! We are definitely two good lunge sessions at walk and trot in both directions. It might even be 3 or 4 sessions that we have had but I am not sure. I've also been doing bits of riding for Lynn at the moment, I rode Sonny once. I've rode Derry a few times who I do love, but she is a bit more wooden and stiff. She is still a lovely ride though and at the end of each of our rides we tend to go for a wonder down the road and back again. For the first time on Tuesday I got to ride Faze and I love her! She...

Things are going well with Magic, in fact with all the horses at the yard, as you all know I managed to Lunge Magic and Ride Derry on Wednesday, Thursday Magic got to do a little bit of work, then I lunged Sparky, and then hopped on Sonny for a little bit, before Friday Magic got lunged in the field to do something different. Over the weekend the horses had the time off, this is the time when Jack's off work so we tend to do things and then I focus on Magic while Jack is at work, we also didn't have a car this weekend. Today kick started the week off on the right foot. I had a lie in this morning when I got back from collecting a parcel and taking Jack to work, then mum came over and we tidied my Garden up before heading over to the yard. When I got there I lunged Magic for a while, we focused on staying in walk and trot and lunging for 7 minutes in each direction with no side reins. We started off going the direction that he isn't the worlds biggest fan of, becaus...

The past few days have been INTENSE to say the least. Both days have been filled with horsey madness and while I am aching now I feel good for managing to accomplish everything that I have done. There will be some video's soon but I honestly just haven't got around to uploading them and editing them so as soon as I do that I'll let you know and you can all see. Yesterday I went up to do Magic, after all the ponies nearly escaped from the field I eventually managed to convince him to come and do some work. He had a really nice groom and fuss, which he LOVED. Then I put his bridle with his new reins on, and his lunge cavesson (not sure if I have spelt that right), we lunged nicely for both ways doing walk, trot and canter. Then out of no where going to the right he exploded. I couldn't see anything that had happened so assumed he was just having one of his moments and that he would be fine and calm down, but that I might need to free school him first. So I did what I...

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 another long day but it has also been a good day! This morning we had to get up early to go walk Charlie for Daryl, he had a house inspection, so we were helping him out. Then we went over to my mums to fill in an application form for a house that we had seen yesterday, that I had really liked. At lunch time Jack had a doctors appointment for a lump that he is found in his mouth. With his anxiety these things tend to send him through the roof so after being there for a week he needed to be seen by the doctors. They said that they think it is just a cyst, but that he needs to be seen by the dentist. While he was waiting at the doctors I headed home to let the dogs out and then walked back down to the doctors. I've been really trying for the past three days to get my health kick back in to action, so it was good to know that I had done so much so early on. It was then a mad rush to get to the next house viewing, originally I was set on moving to the house we v...

Hi everyone, Okay so I skipped out on posting yesterday and was going to skip out on it again today but I decided not to! I gave myself a kick up the arse and decided to just get on with it things aren't great now but they are what they are and that is life. Today started off badly then got worse and has ended okay. I woke up this morning and was exhausted. I've been having problems sleeping for a while, due to the stress of my housing situation then last night I really didn't sleep well. Then when I woke up this morning I managed to fall down the stairs, my head went black and everything went cloudy and then I fell and slid half way down the stairs. I have no idea what caused it, I've put it down to stress but I really do not know. Then we went over to my mums and I had a better look at what houses were up for rent, nothing jumped out to me as anything that we hadn't already looked at. I made Jack and myself lunch and after waiting for what felt like a...

Well I thought that I had wrote a blog post yesterday but it turned out I missed it! But that's okay I'll share this video of attempting to lunge magic over poles. Well today has been an okay day we have managed to get three viewings booked in two for tomorrow, and one for Monday (at the house that we really want). But only time will tell what is meant to be and that's okay, it's a slow process but we will get there in the end. As everyone likes to keep reminding me we have two months to find somewhere yet. We went to view another house today and it's safe to say it was HORRIBLE, there was one room I liked and the photo's looked NOTHING like what the house actually looked like. The garden was a health and safety hazard to say the least and it was absolutely awful! So that meant that we hadn't resolved any issues and also meant that there was more questions that needed to be answered. After this we went to see Magic, I mucked out his stable and was...

I really feel like I am about to go mad! This year is not getting off to a great start and that is driving me mad, I blame jack for breaking a mirror on the second day of this year! only joking! Well I told you all about my issues with my house over the weekend, I emailed and said that these things needed to be resolved or environmental health would be getting involved, well yesterday morning I woke up to a email saying I was going to be handed my notice and would have to find somewhere else to live. This sent my head in to a bit of a whirl wind as I've been looking for months for somewhere else to live and nothing has come up. Then we found a lovely house that was literally round the corner from where we used to live in oakwood, it was clean tidy and soooo nice! I rang up this morning and applied for the house to get a phone call back this afternoon to tell me that the house had already been let to someone else. To say that I was gutted is an understatement! I've then spe...

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...

Today has been a bit better day, my mum managed to get me a appointment with my regular doctor this morning to discuss being prescribed more morphine. After over a month of trying my GP saw me and within two minutes prescribed my regular pain relief, so now I can hopefully get my pain back to being under control which will help with the sleeping. I then came home and watched some T.V. with Jack before popping over to see my mum and get my new phone case. I then came home walked the dogs and did tea. So I've been spending a lot of time researching what I plan to do with Magic over the next few months and I have found some videos on youtube of things that I am aiming towards doing with Magic over the next 6 months. The first thing that I would like to say is that the videos that have been posted below are not my video's just things that I have taken inspiration from and would like to try. The first thing that I would like to try and do is lunging over poles, now for any ...

Well today has been a bit better and a bit worse, now I know that probably sounds like a complete contradiction but it's definitely how I'm feeling. I woke up this morning and still felt awful so chose to go back to sleep. My mum said that she would do Magic for me but I still wanted to go and see him. Mum said that I was to take it easy and not do to much so while she was starting doing his stable, I decided to start off by brushing him. But then I decided that we would try and do some work so I spent some time giving him some fuss before putting all his tack/equipment back on, we then spent four and half minutes lunging to the right and then four and a half minutes to the left. It took me a while to get him to be calm and relaxed but this was due to the fact that he was quite excitable today, he was a bit all over the place but we still managed to get some nice work together. We did walk and trot in both directions, I tried to ask for the canter but that wasn't happening...

Magic was really good today. I wasn't feeling great when I woke up this morning so I wasn't sure whether I would be up for doing Magic, however jack agreed to do his stable (which of course means magic always gets spoiled for bedding so he loves that). So I took the opportunity to take magic in to the school. I put his roller on, put his bridle on and put his cavesson on. It was the first break in the rubbish weather that we had been having all day then we took him in to the school. I really wanted to concentrate on getting Magic to relax when working. Today we did a bit harder work, doing both walk and trot work to the left and right. We stuck to doing 4 minutes work each way. Every time that I got magic to change what we were doing, I would get him to come back in to the centre and give him a fuss and a rub on his head where his white markings are, his new favourite place to be rubbed. When we had finished doing the work we then walked around the school for a little bit, jus...

Yesterday was a quiet day for Magic and myself, I wasn't feeling very well so I spent a quiet day at home and relaxed. We then had to go to the doctors for Jack's appointment to do with his eyes, and I have to say that it wasn't the most helpful of appointments. Before coming home and walking the dogs, then spending the evening in front of the T.V.  Below you will be able to see Magic and Brody working together, as you can tell both horse and small person where equally happy and both extremely excited. There was no harm done and both enjoyed it. Today has been a much more productive day, I had to be up at 8am this morning to go to see the physiotherapist. I was there for about 45 minutes and they came to the conclusion that the muscles from the middle of my back down and my thighs up are quite tight, so are the nerves. They think this is due to the fact that they are quiet weak, so gave me three exercises to do multiple times a day to relax the muscles but also to ...

Well magic is doing super well, yesterday we did some more ground work with him, starting to really build up the work that he's doing so that when it comes to the time to ride him there is a solid foundation for it in place. So we gave magic a fuss and a cuddle. Then went to work. We slowly placed his roller and his saddle pad over his back and then got to work on slowly doing it up, the idea was to gradually do it all up while giving him fuss so that he saw it as a rewarding thing and not a punishment or something that he does not do. We then walked out to the school and got to work on lunging, we started off on his bad rein (left rein) we did walk work and really built up the idea of getting him to lunge and stay out not fall in. We then added in a little bit of trot, not a lot but enough that he was experiencing something different. We lunged to the left for 3 mins 30 seconds. After this we stopped changed the rein and lunged to the right, this way he was much happier to pi...

so yesterday I didn't get around to writing my blog post I was feeling a little bit under the weather so spent the evening curled up with the dogs, watching Heartland on Netflix. However we also had a really good session with Magic yesterday too, my dad and mum did magic's stable to save me some time, and I got to giving Magic a brush and taking his rugs off. After this I put Magic's Cavesson on again and then gently placed Magic's bridle on. The idea was to do a little bit more work with him as long as he was happy to do it, it's only over the past week that I have started incorporating more work. So if he wasn't happy then we weren't going to do it. However I was amazed when Magic was happy to go in to the school and just got straight to it. We mainly focused on walk work going clockwise to start with but then Magic picked up a trot so we went with it, we spent a few minutes going this way before I asked him to stand again and then bought him back to walk...

Okay so I didn't manage to get a video today but after magic responded so well to his cavesson yesterday on decide to take the plunge and give it another go today. I went up to the stables and magic was already in. So I tied him up outside while I got to work on his stable, it wasnt as bad as normal today but it was still pretty trashed. I then got his grooming kit and got to doing a bit of grooming magic was being good and calm. He seemed to have a sensible head on him which is great.  I then put his cavesson on and over the top put his bridle on him. I don't connect the  lunge line to the bridle as at the moment the idea of the bridle being on is just to get him used to the feel of it. I gave him a quick fuss before asking the lady who owns sonny if it would be okay to lunge magic in the bottom of the school while she rode. I expected magic to be quite excitable when Sonny went in to trot but he really wasnt. We only did walk work at the moment but he maintained a nice ...

So today I took the plunge and went to get magic a lunge cavesson after doing a fair bit of research into it last night. I figured I needed a little bit of help with magics lunging not because he is naughty but because he is green. Some days we will have a really good lunge session, hell be foot perfect and we can get walk and trot work (we haven't started on canter yet). Other days he will do two or three good strides and then decide to stop and then stand there and stare at me or he'll try and decide that he is going the opposite way. Now I know that this isn't really him being naughty it is just him being a baby. So we will keep working on this. However I have also looked in to how I can use this to work on his ground work. The main thing that we need to work on is trotting in hand, and standing and waiting as these are not necessarily magics strong point but in time he will get there.  Above you can see magic lunging today. I will be the first to admit that today...

okay so it's been quite a while since I've posted on here, I think that it would be honest to say that I can't really remember the last time that I've posted on here, but as I took the opportunity to enjoy the snowy scenery and take some photographs of magic, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to get back in to regularly posting. So Magic is coming on really well, he has changed loads over the past year, and is becoming a very gentle giant. At just over two and a half years old, he's already standing at over 16.2hh, and he's now starting to chunk out nicely as well. We currently lunge twice a week, we are doing more walking out on the roads and slowly introducing him to new things. Of course I have cuteness overload in the form of pictures for you all. I am so happy that magic is also coming in to winter nicely, I'll have to admit that after last winter I was a little bit nervous that he would be poorly again but he hasn't been! He's got a...