The way to heaven is on horseback

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...

 Todays plans had a few changes in them but they were all for the best. As you will know I had a great time jumping Gatsby yesterday but I was knackered by the time I got in bed, I got in bed at 8 and went to sleep within about 5 minutes and slept through until about 10ish. When I got up mum told me that there was going to be a change of plans, instead of getting to the stables for 12:30 I got to the stables for 11:30. Fiona said that she would explain when we got there and when she did explain it made a lot more sense. With only having Gatsby and Rocky that we can use I was going to ride Gatsby early on my own and do some jumping I was all for this. In stead of riding for an hour I rode for 45 minutes but it was more consistent work and I wasn't being as lazy as I tend to be, I was working harder and trying to build my stamina up.  I got Gatsby ready to get on him at 12:15, we started warming him up and making sure that from the beginning he is active. Fiona told me not ...

Why is it when you think that you are going to do a dressage test, your brain freezes up, you can't think and you tense up? Well that was exactly what happened today. When we got there we all got given the tests that we would do I got to do a British Young Riders Dressage Scheme 'C Squad' test. This test included Walk, Trot, Canter, serpentines, 20m Circles and half 20m circles. We walked through our tests first and I noticed just how much canter work I would actually be doing and I think that this is the thing that I was most nervous about. When we had walked the test, we then tacked up the horses that we would be riding, we tacked up Gatsby, Rascal and Rocky. I rode Gatsby, JaimieLeigh rode Rascal and Mollie started off riding Rosie but then later switched to riding Rocky and JaimieLeigh got on Gatsby.  In walk all the horses was fine, Gatsby was active and stretching, he was responsive and listening well. Rascal and Rosie were also fine. JaimieLeigh and I are used t...

Well today was my pony club evening and the week that we did the first part of the bronze award ( for those of you that do not know there are three parts). I was really excited but at the same time I was really nervous. I didn't know why I was nervous because it was all things that I am able to do my sleep. But we will come back to that later.  I woke up this morning really early for me considering I'm on holidays for three months now! I watched Jeremy Kyle and just spent some time chilling I spent some time reading everyone's blogs and then curled up and watched some of the soaps that I enjoy that I had missed last week. It got to mid afternoon and I decided that I wanted something from Burger King,      I also offered to buy my brother some burger king to, as he'd spent all day in his room and I just thought it would be something nice to do. When we got home my dad was in from work so we took Angel for a quick walk up the hill and back, the heels quite steep s...

Monday was Pony Club night, my favourite evening activity of the week! This week we were looking at how to correctly cool or sponge down a horse, I loved it cause we got to do it on Vettie who is Fiona's horse. We also got to check him over for cuts and Jaimie-Leigh noticed that there was a cut. When we had done this we decided that it was going to be time to feed the horses. Everyone good their own horse or horses and had to feed them, we had to make sure that we did it in the same order that they would normally get it as horses love routine. We started looking at the 10 feeding rules, which are something that I did not know, I knew some of them once I heard Fiona saying them but they were not in the front of my mind. We all kept getting really distracted so we only got to look at the first 3 of them. Next week we are going to look at all of them!  When we had finished this we got the choice that we could either ride the horses or lunge them, then Fiona said lunge jump them, ...

Today was my own a pony day, and I loved it. For the first time this week that the weather was pleasant. It was so hot that it made riding hard work but just loved it. I think I might even have got a tan, which is awesome as I normally burn not tan. We got there at 9:00 and the horses were all out except for Gatsby and Rascal, who had already been mucked out and fed. By 10:30 we had all the feed buckets cleaned, the stalls mucked out and water buckets emptied, cleaned and then refilled. All we had left to do in the stables was fill and hang hay nets. I got on Gatsby and Fiona asked if I would like to jump Gatsby. I agreed as this is something that I used to love doing. I got him groomed, tacked him up, and got ready to get on him. Because he was jumping we decided to put his front boots on but not his back boots. I got on him and started warming him up making sure that he was working long and low and really stretching out. As I was riding for half an hour instead of an hour, I had to ...

Today was my own a pony day with Gatsby at West Hallam Riding Centre, I had such a good day and a real laugh with all the people that were there. There was four of us on the own a pony day and Fiona was there but Elaine wasn't there. We started off by mucking the horses out I did Gatsby and Soly's Stable and took all the mess out and then in both of them we were putting them in a new bail of Sawdust (can't think what it is actually called), We did this quite quickly and again I put 10ibs of Haylage in his stable and did a 14ibs haynet of Haylage that was ready for him for tonight and will go in his stable later, Fiona, Jamie-Leigh and I then swept the yard as the other two girls that were there were a lot younger and quite small. We had a break and had something to drink and then went onto fetching the horses in Jaimie-Leigh and Fiona bought in Fussy and Hazel, then I bought in Rosie and Fiona bought in Corrie (I think), while we were doing this Jaimie-Leigh and the girls ...

Today I got to work with two different horses, but in total we used four horses. The snow came thick and heavy last night, and at one point riding wasn't an option. The roads were full of snow, you couldn't drive on them and it was just getting worse. This morning mum text my teacher, Fiona, to ask if the lesson was still on and it was, as long as we could get there and mums new car did get us there without complaining about the snow although the roads were no where near being clear. When we got there I had 40 minutes to play with Gatsby and groom him and it felt weird to groom him with hardly any mud on but it was fun, and he was being playful including letting me stroke his ears which is something he used to love but something he now HATES! He didn't like it but he let me do it and because he did that he got rewarded with lots of Carrots! He was a happy boy after that :'). Then I tacked him up only putting on his boots and borrowing Elaine's horse, Soloman...

So yesterday me and mum and my nephew went up to west hallam riding centre to brave the cold weather so that I could ride Gatsby, i got him all tacked up, brushed and nice and shiny and all though it was cold I loved every single minute of it. We decided that we were going to do some pole work, to give us a break from the complicated moves that we have been doing mainly the shoulder in, but that we would still try to incorporate the moves in to warming them up and through out the lesson.  The main thing from the lesson that I was buzzing about was the fact that for the majority of the lesson me and Gatsby worked in a really good outline, he dropped his head down when asked to and was perfect he's such a good fella when he wants to be that is, so the trot work was great and the main improvement was that I managed to keep my elbows in which is something that I am practicing now while I write this so that I get in to the habit of doing it while I'm riding, because I think the...