The way to heaven is on horseback

Today has been a really good day, even if I did wake up feeling like death warmed up. Unfortunately it feels like I have got tonsilitis again, it's the start of a new year and the start of a count down until I can get my tonsils taken out, but knowing my luck I won't have it enough times in a year.  But anyway I rode a new horse this morning, I'm sure in my posts somewhere I will have mentioned Stan Kelly's horse, well today I got to ride him. He's 17.2hh I think and 15 years old. He is lovely to ride. He is slightly similar to ride to Gatsby but in other ways he is completely different. He's a lot easier to get in to an outline than I expected, once you really sit in to his saddle, and sit in to him he drops down. The key to riding him was not to use a lot of hand although to make sure that I got him off the right rein as he likes to grab it and try and hold on to it. When i first started riding him I didn't think that he was going to be that easy, but...

WARNING THE VIDEO'S DO ALL OPEN IN A NEW TAB AS I HAVE TAKEN THEM OFF ONE DRIVE AND EMBEDDED THEM. BUT YOU CAN ALL STILL WATCH THEM THEY JUST TAKE A FEW SECONDS TO LOAD. Jumping Gatsby, A vertical Jump, the idea behind doing this was that I needed to work with the other rider and we had to do the jumps as if we were in a warm up ring. E.G. taking the opportunity to jump when there was a gap. Vertical Jump. First time jumping the vertical jump. Small cross rail. First time jumping. Until Next Time Amber Rose.

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 ...

…And I am going insane. It's weird the effects horses have on me but I feel like when I'm not around horses that often I'm just not very chilled out an calm the majority of the time. Yesterday and today have both been fairly quiet. I haven't really done a lot, I played on my playstation with Jack, completed a series of prison break, and did some more hula hooping to try and lose weight and tone myself up a little bit. Tonight I am off to work at the part time job that I share with Jack (The River Garden Chinese as a Delivery driver).  Saturday I am back to riding normally and I can not wait. I'm buzzing about it. This will hopefully be the week that I finally get to ride bare back but only time will tell. But anyway that's it and theres nothing interesting left for me to say. AmberRose.

Well the blog front is still being quiet because at the moment I haven't got a lot going on to do with horses. After losing my job at the stables due to ill health and working a part time delivery job with my boyfriend to make ends meet I'm back to being at the stables once a week and this week that didn't even happen, due to Fiona's ill health. So I've seen a few people commenting not knowing much about my ill health with my stomach so I thought I'd spend this time sharing with you some photographs taken by my amazing mum and boyfriend and explaining more about my stomach problems.  So for those of you that don't know I have struggled with my stomach on and off since 2006 (when I was in year 7, 11 years old I think). Everyone thought that I was just complaining about having stomach ache because I didn't want to go to school, teachers tried blaming it on 'being bullied' or that I didn't like the lessons. Doctors kept telling me that it w...

Well I got reminded last night that I don't think I ever posted on here the results from my dressage competition, I didn't manage to place in either of the tests but the good news is that in both of them I was one place of placing. I got 7th in both and even managed to get a '9' score on my first test. My riding was better in the walk trot test because I had a bit of a melt down in the second test because instead of focusing on what I was doing I was stressing about who was judging me however I didn't come last on either of them so I was quite happy. Gatsby was a star that day, I still need to put the videos on youtube but as soon as I have put them up I will post them here and you can let me know what you guys think.  These are just a couple of photographs that were taken at the show, these are my two favourites and the one at the top is even my laptop screensaver, after having done one show I have realised that I would love to do another one. But first I wa...

Well its time for an update on everything that has been going on in my world.  First of being my loan with tubby, that is no longer happening unfortunately things were starting to get too complicated and after the fall that Elaine had with him at that point he was not sound. And no one could guarentee when he was going to be sound and we decided that there was no point starting the loan on wrong footing so unfortunately that did not happen. However I have come up with a new plan of things that I want to do I am currently saving up for a foal while a lot of people might not think that this is the worlds best idea because of the fact that it is my first ever horse however I feel that with the support and knowledge I have surrounding me that this is something that I would be able to do. Feel free to let Me know your thoughts. Another thing you have all missed is the fact that I am having problems with my stomach again at the minute. For the last few weeks I have been being sick all...

I've had a good few days. Monday I had my night out with the uni girls, it was a good night and we had a proper giggle, yes it was a knackering night and I felt shattered the next morning but it was so fun and I enjoyed it for a change. I also had pony club monday night and it went really well. We worked on grooming horses properly and how to look after a horse in cold weather and snow as we have had snow again. The uni girls :D Tuesday (yesterday) I went to uni in the morning and then spent the day in bed, other than going to the doctors where it was confirmed I do have tonsillitis, I basically slept for twenty four hours.  Wednesday (today), I went to work this morning, I've really been struggling with my throat but decided to ignore that and just get on with it and enjoy myself. I mucked out four stables and helped to fill hay nets, I was there for two hours and it was so cold! Gatsby was glad to be bought in by the end of the morning, he's not enjoying the sn...

Today has been a good first day working at my stables, I'm getting paid £6 an hour, and working for two hours a morning, this morning I mucked out the boys stables, it's a row of five. I did everyone but Gatsbys because Gatsby's stable was completely and utterly ditched. So Fiona went out to get him some Aquamax bedding. Then I helped Fiona to bring the horses in. It was a really good morning and I felt loads better after being there and working. Just before I was about to leave fiona asked if it would be possible for me to work Thursday mornings as well, so tomorrow I am back at the stables again but this time it'll be from 8am until 10am. I'm getting paid weekly and all the money that I make is being saved up and going straight back in to my savings account. I'm loving spending so much time at the stables, I feel that it is helping to improve my health and help me lose weight.  Anyway I'm curled up in my bed with my nephew so I'm going to leave yo...

Well today has been a long day and also a kind of boring day. I haven't been able to go riding today, unfortunately we have been given some really bad weather and today did not let down. When I got in last night at about 7pm I knew that the weather was not going to be good, the wind was getting worse and worse and when I was driving there was lots of branches and assorts all over the road. When I was say watching T.V. with my mum and dad you could hear the wind outside over the T.V. and this carried on all night.  When I woke up this morning the weather had not got any better in fact if it had got worse, the wind was getting stronger and faster and it was dropping colder. Fiona decided that the wind was getting to strong and so she cancelled the lessons, however I am going up on Monday and if the weather is okay she says that I can ride Vettie. Vettie and I on one of our first lessons, my position is awful here and is loads better now.  Tomorrow I am off to see Ja...

Hiya Everyone,  Well today has been a really really good day I absolutely loved my time at the stables. I got to my stables for 8am and was there up until 1.20pm, while it was a along morning, I really enjoyed it and I got to spend some quality time with Gatsby :D. What more could a girl ask for? I got there for 8 and started on mucking out, Fiona had already told me that she was going to be going out at 9 and I would be at the stables with Barry so could carry on doing work. I did Gatsby's stable, Soly's stable, sam's stable and Vettie's stable, and made sure that they had all got there hay nets filed, I also filled Percy's stable while Barry mucked him out. When Fiona got back she also offered me a job :D, so now instead of just helping out in the mornings, on a Wednesday I will be working there for two hours and getting paid for it, then in February time I might be working more than one morning a week. I am super excited and really can't wait :D I'm ...

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...

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',...