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...

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,...

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...

Today I rode Gatsby, it was amazing! I have now managed to remember my dressage test well the 2nd one (the hardest one) and started my walk warm up by practicing it. I walked through the whole test before moving on to doing sections of the test in trot. I warmed up for about five minutes on each rein in walk and then roughly four minutes in trot, before picking up. At this point I did not want to ask for the canter because I know that canter work it what wares me out and this made a whole difference to the test. I managed to ride it through a lot more positively. The only bit of canter work that I did in the warm up was half a 20m circle twist. I then moved on to riding through the test. For me I needed to not stress out and just focusing on my riding at the end of the day. I KNOW what I am doing, I CAN ride all of these movements separately now all I need to do is string them together. So when I went on to riding through the test this is what I needed to remember. When I ...

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 ...