The way to heaven is on horseback

 Wow it feels like a life time ago since I updated my blog let alone since I actually started first writing this blog. So many things have changed and I’ve kept thinking about restarting this but every time I think about doing it life gets in the way and before you know it I just haven’t done it.  So where do I start, how about with the big fella himself. My midnight magic is now 8! He has a heart of gold and after a particularly rough year is definitely coming out of the other side. Magic is a jumping lover and if you let him pick I think that’s all he’d ever do. He’s spent a lot of time working on his flat work which in the long run has really helped to develop his jumping. Last year magic suffered a horrible injury, he damaged his suspensory ligament on his front left leg and on the same leg damaged the collateral ligament that goes to his coffin joint, unfortunately for him he had a pretty bleak prognosis, with only a 30% of being even field sound. With a little bit of luc...

 So I realised that it has been a while since I updated this blog so thought out was time to bring it back to life. Magic is now 6  and the b dream finally came true. Since I last posted we have moved yards and magic is now on a lovely yard, it's a working farm with lots of character and a family atmosphere. Magic is coming on in leaps and bounds me as you gu us have been on this journey with me from the start I decided that it was time to bring you guys back along for the journey.  Magic got backed over a year ago now and since then we have entered our first online competition, we have competed at our first ever competition at a venue and we've done our first ever endurance ride. We have changed coaches, made friends and lost friends but most importantly we've learnt together and come a really long way.  So let's talk about our most recent adventures, the first one being his first ever endurance ride. We are so lucky to live within hacking distance of a endurance ri...

Just a quick post from me today, sorry I haven't posted in a while, it's not even that I have been that busy I just haven't been on my laptop much recently and updating from my phone is a pain!  So what's new?  Magic is doing really well it's been a few weeks since I've seen him but he's good! Last time I saw him he was letting me touch him willingly and he was following me (or more I was following) and playing with him around the field! He's being delivered on the 10th Of October (which would have been my Nan's birthday), his stables sorted, I know what bedding I'm using. Now all I need to do is sort out feeding, worming, dentist and the farrier! Yeah not much at all, next joke lol. I've sorted out some rugs as my amazing riding teacher has kindly offered to give me some rugs for him. So that's all good.  Now on to the riding, I've been back riding either two or three weeks, since I broke my hand. It's going really well,...

Sorry guys I know it's been quite a while but to be honest I just haven't been in that much recently and then when I have been in I've been too tired to do any blogging. But I'm trying to sort out and get the blogger app working on my phone so that I can update on the move.  Well life on the riding front is slowly moving forward, we haven't done any excessive work recently firstly because of the heat that we have had (it's just been too hot to work the horse) and when it's not been red hot we've had bad storms here! Secondly because Gats, hasn't been 100% sound. He's developed arthritis in his pastern in his front legs and the joints are fusing together in his hock on both back legs. He's also had the chiropractor out to adjust his back and he is now being rode in a dressage saddle that is being temporarily loaned to him until Jenny buys him a new one (we could be waiting a while). But he's working really well in this new saddle and ...

Today I rode Vettie again it started off well in the fact that I was able to get him to stretch down but I knew from the start that it wasn't going to be the best ride and it wasn't. Yesterday my hip started hurting and today it proved to be a problem but a problem that could be fixed. For edges Vettie looked like a giraffe I just couldn't get him in to an outline and because of how my hip was I didn't do any trot work. Yep that's right I did an hour's lesson in walk.  It got to the point where I was getting mad at myself and then because I was getting frustrated I started crying for no reason. So Fiona suggested that I rode as if I had no legs, meaning that I had to use my seat 100%. The minute I Started doing this an outline started appearing, I was amazed by how well I was able to get him moving by just using my seat. My hip hurt a lot after but it was worth it. I could do serpentines, circles and all those types of things without using my legs. I even m...

So today I got a nice surprise when I got to my stables it turned out I would be having a change of horse for the lesson this week and I was privileged enough to be able to ride Vettie. For those of you that don't know Vettie is Fiona's horse that she competes to a really high level. The minute I sat on him I found that I did really like him, he made me feel confident and he didn't make my back hurt. His saddle put me in exactly the right place and as soon as I started moving with him I could feel my hips instinctively swinging with the movement of his body. Steph taught Alice and JaimieLeigh  while Fiona helped me to get used to him. His trot was amazing! He has such a big bouncy stride but I found that I didn't struggle to rise with it, I even got him in a nice outline for quite a while which felt amazing! I really did enjoy riding him and look forward to riding him again one day. We worked on doing some leg yield which went awfully for me but made Vettie drop in to ...

In todays lesson Gatsby and I worked on Flat work. After doing a few weeks of jumping work it's safe to say it's time for me to start getting back in to my outline work. When I got there I gave Gatsby some loving and a good groom then I got on him. We decided that we would work more on getting him in to an outline and also on getting him to be more forward and responsive. When I first got on he was responsive and moving off my leg, but when circling we were getting way to much leg bend. So we worked on staying really still in my position.  I then started moving on to doing rein back, this is where things started to get really interesting Gatsby became a hundred times more responsive. We would do two or three steps of rein back then I would ask him to move forwards but going straight in to the trot. This was amazing we were managing to get in to the outline a lot easier and I was really enjoying it. However as soon as I started to feel tired I lost the outline. Fiona got on...

Today was the second badge testing evening at Pony Club, we were doing the points of the horse and I was more nervous about doing this badge than the grooming and handling badge. I know the grooming things, the points of the horse I wasn't so sure about.  I had a practice before and then went to doing the test with Gatsby. To start with I said all of the points of the horse that I knew, then Elaine asked me the ones I hadn't said and I had to say where they were on the horse. I got all of them except three and the ones that I didn't get Elaine didn't know either, so that was comforting to know.  When we had finished that Fiona told us that we were not going to know whether we had passed or not  until the end. We decided that we were going to work on doing plaiting and also how to put on bandages. This is something that I have always found difficult but I only got one attempt at three years ago so I was looking forward to trying to do it again. The great thing w...

Riding two horses in one day. This morning I got up to go riding, I turned up at my stables to find that for once it had cooled down a bit. There was lots of clouds and it looked like it was going to rain but it didn't. I spent half an hour grooming Gatsby, and giving him some love. Then at 1 I got on JaimieLeigh  wasn't there for the lesson today but Alice was. Before I got on we made sure that both of my stirrups were level. Then when I got on Fiona and my mum looked to see whether I was still level and I wasn't this proves that my hip is slightly out of place. I spent the first 15 minutes riding Gatsby making sure that he moved willingly and forward. I then got off and put the belt on it's job is to hold my hip in the correct position not the position that it is at the moment.  When we put the belt on and I got back on Gatsby we noticed an immediate difference, I was so much more level and Gatsby was a lot more responsive. He was amazing! He turned from me movin...