The way to heaven is on horseback

Well I was reading a really interesting post that can be found  here on Equestrian Journey's Blog  and thought that I might have to copy the idea of the list, as with only being at my stables two days a week while I'm at Uni there isn't an awful lot horse related going on. There is 214 things on this list and first i'm going to put the things that I have already done!  2. Canter straight between two poles set parallel on the ground, make them as narrow as you can. This is something that I have done with Gatsby and other horses, I did this recently with Gatsby to work on my straightness when jumping and making sure we would get the right stride in canter before putting the jumps up.  8. Ride in the rain, intentionally. Living in the UK it rains a lot so if I stopped riding just cause it rained I probably would not do that much riding! 10. Try riding in a new saddle. On Gatsby alone I have rode in three different saddles on him, when Riding ...

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...

Well I've not got around to posting in a while as I've been quite busy but wanted to write about a couple of good rides I've had recently and tomorrow I will post Videos of one of my rides. On Saturday I got to ride Gatsby for the first time in a while, I was looking forward to it as it meant that I could work on some different things. We did some trot work and canter work. We did an exercise that we haven't done in a while where you trot over three trotting poles then ask for the canter as soon as you're over the poles and do a 20m circle. This is an exercise that I've always loved doing. We then moved on to doing some related distance canter work. We had two trot poles with three or four canter strides in between them the idea was we would go over it still being a dressage rider and alternate the type of stride meaning we would either extend it or collect it, altering the amount of strides. I really enjoyed doing this but found that I was getting quite tired ...

Today has been a really good day. I absolutely loved my ride. It's been a quite a while since I've done any canter work and today after watching one of the other girls lessons I felt the need to do some canter work.  I was back on Gatsby which I really enjoyed. I was looking forward to my ride but at the start I wasn't 100% sure how it was going to go. We spent the first part of the lesson working on the outline. I found that he was dropping a lot easier in to an outline but I think that I was over thinking it a bit to much. I didn't get it 100% but I was happy with where we left it off. I found that he was really locking his neck in place so I was having to be really firm with him to get him to flex.  When we moved on to the canter work Fiona asked me if I was feeling nervous which I said that honestly yes I was. I think in my mind I thought because I hadn't done any canter work in a while I would still be cantering how I used to be which wasn't great ...

I love these photo's I don't know why but I love it, I found it so easy to go in to this position and my legs weren't burning as much. I think slowly but surely I'm getting there.  I also really like this picture :)  This was the worst jump out of all of them! After this photo was taken we knocked the jump down it was awful. Just before this photo was taken I froze up the photo's below this one you can see the difference and how we started to improve.  I love how happy and active Gatsby looks in this picture he really loves jumping and it is nice to see how much he enjoys it. You can tell how much he loves it compared to doing the flat work.  This was the first jump and it was also the first time going over the jump in trot. We became much more relaxed and chilled out while jumping. I need to trust myself more and realise that I can do it, I just need to believe in myself.  Until Next Time A Girl With A Dream

Today I rode on my own again. We decided that with Gatsby and  I enjoying jumping so much that we would carry on doing jump work. We decided that we would do two jumps going down the long side of the school. We warmed up and I could fall how responsive Gatsby was it was almost like he knew what we were going to do before we had even said anything. I made sure that even as we were warming up he was listening to me and forward off my leg. Fiona first put out some trot poles that we went over first in rising trot and then in a jump seat. When I was ready Steph and Fiona put two poles down the long side set up with two non jump strides in the middle (I think that was right) the aim was to go over these in canter and get used to the strides in between, we then put the furthest away up to a cross and went over the poles then over the jump, this week we were working on starting to approach in canter, to start with it wasn't very pretty I kept freezing and not being able to get the right s...

Above you will find the video of Gatsby and I from yesterday, towards the end you will see that coming in to the smaller jump we approached in to canter. We were supposed to be staying in the trot but Gatbsy wanted to move in to the canter so we went with this. Fiona said that she could see in my mind that I was wondering whether to bring him back or go with it so she shouted with me to go with it and I'm glad that I did because it made me realise that I can jump from a canter and that when we are Gatsby isn't going to rush it. I chose the song 'Wild Horses' because it just seemed to fit, because when you're jumping it feels like you are 'free'.  Today I have spent some time started to get to know my iMovie software and that was how I was able to make this video it took a while but I think it is a good over view of my lesson on Saturday. I also went for a drive with my mum as my driving test is soon! Then when I got in I spent some time curled up with...

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...

There were no light bulb moments this week, but we did some nice canter work. I spent half an hour brushing him and giving him some love and attention at one point I thought that he was going to fall asleep on me. I'd found an area near his nose/muzzle that he enjoyed having scratched and he just started nodding off it was soo nice!  I tacked him up and got on him. I knew what I wanted to accomplish that day and that was doing more working cantering and a small amount of work with out stirrups. After I had warmed Gatsby up I took away my stirrups and we kept in walk. We did lots of transitions and asking him to soften. Then at one point he decided that he was going to start backing up on me and not listen to my leg when I asked him to move my forward. After this incident I got my stirrups back and continued asking him to soften. For some reason this week I just couldn't quite get it right, we soon realised that I was asking for way to much bend! He was pushing his head to ...

Today has been another good but long day, I still didn't sleep well but I've been busy all day today so I am hoping that I will sleep better (although I do have an early start tomorrow). This morning I woke up and just watched tv and did some reading as I hadn't got any plans for the morning.  This afternoon was busy but fun. I had my first driving lesson with my new driving teacher and it went really well! He asked me what I knew how to do and I told him the things that I knew. We then started driving and he said that he wanted to do assess my driving. We had been driving for a little while and he said that what we were doing was too easy for me so we moved on to doing hill starts and things like that. It went really well, and he said that I can do my test soon, and I should only need 10 lessons. Then I can drive by myself and tomorrow I will be hearing more about how my car is doing, hopefully I will get it back towards the end of the week!  After this I went up ...

Today was a good day with Gatsby, it was my weekly lesson and I was buzzing for it as I'd not had any horse time since pony club because of being ill. When I got there he was being used for a lesson so I got to see someone else ride him which I found quite useful. When I got on him he was already armed up but I still spent some time getting him to stretch out and getting his walk to swing.  When I picked him up I was getting bits of outline but nothing amazing, but then I had a light bulb moment when we moved on up in to the trot. We'd been doing lots of transitions and working on our rising trot, and I just felt like doing some sitting trot before I moved on to doing any canter work. When I was sitting I was making sure to really move my hips with him and the minute I did this his head dropped down in to an outline, his hind end came under him and it was all more balanced it felt AMAZING! I only had to slightly half halt to keep him in it but I hardly had to move to get h...