The way to heaven is on horseback

Well today has been a long but eventful day, I have had two really good rides on two fantastic horses. A day full of horses, face planted the floor off a horse and am now aching and ready for bed, but tomorrow I am off to see Jack, then he's home wednesday.  So the first ride of the day was on Vettie, we were working on maintaining consistency in the outline in both walk and trot. It went really well, as long as we kept his pace moving and forward we were fine. Our best work was our trot work, where we maintained a great self carriage. I am so happy with the work that we did. We did lots of walk trot transitions doing just short blasts of trot work. We also did lots of circles but we did a small amount of lateral work at the minute just sticking to doing leg yields.  My second ride of the day was on Tubby (the horse that I am going to part loan) and this is where I face planted the ground. Tubby needs some work with getting on him, he likes to move off. I'd got my foo...

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...

hiya guys well it's been a few days and I was planning on updating you all today. Unfortunately I won't be able to go in to as much detail as I want to because I am having problems typing because it looks like for the third time I have broken my hand again!  In the exact same place, how rubbish is that? But they can't tell me because it will not show up for another two weeks on an X-ray so at the minute it's back in a splint and I've got to go back to hospital in two weeks.  Well Saturday I got to ride Gatsby again. We have been working on getting him in to an outline more consistantly but it took me seeing Fiona riding Pumpkin Pie for me to know what it was that I needed to do for Gatsby to work properly in to an outline. We got some really good work in the walk and trot (I have got pictures) and slowly we are starting to get it in the canter as well but by the time we move on to canter I tend to feel quite tired and weak on my left side. We did an exercise th...

Well it's been a while since I've done a post so thought I'd start getting back in to the habit of posting again. Things have been a bit hectic recently.  Today I had a ride on Vettie, I've been riding Gatsby again more recently but I always enjoy being able to get on Vettie as well. I didn't have the worlds best ride today because I was getting pain all down my left side and I spent the majority of the lesson trying to get my left leg to actually work, as I was trying to move it and it just wasn't moving which was frustrating to say the least.  I got some really nice shoulder in  transitions though, I even managed to get Vettie on to four tracks instead of three tracks. We did some leg yield as well and where the was some times where he ignored me when I got him to do it he did manage to really cross over. Which felt great. We didn't do any trot work as I just hadn't got the strength in my left side to do it and the more that I rode the more th...

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 ...

not got much to report guys! I've got two weeks off riding now as the school has shut for christmas but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to be at my stables at some point over the holidays. On saturday I got to ride Vettie, he was the last ride of my year and we had a fairly good ride.  I managed to get some really nice outline work out of him and we've become really consistent in the work that we do in the walk. I also attempted doing some leg yields, while they were no where near perfect I did get some leg crossing so I was really happy with that and the more I did it the easier it was to get Vettie to drop in to an outline. I also got a few nice bits in the trot with him. While my trot work still isn't very consistent it is slowly improving but I do need to work more on keeping my position still and holding my core muscles in place.  Sunday we had my uncle over for the family meal, it was nice but at the same time weird because it was the first chris...

hey guys sorry I've not posted in a while.  Today I rode Vettie for my lesson. Alice was riding which meant that she rode Gatsby while I got to ride Vettie. I had a really good ride this week and think that it was probably the best that I have ever rode. Unfortunately when I got there I found out that my camera had died so there was no videos which I was gutted about.  In the walk i was able to quickly and carefully get a nice outline out of Vettie, I did lots of lateral work with him all though none of it was particularly great but the more I did the easier it was to get him in to an outline. My main goal for this week was to be able to get more outline work in the trot and walk and be more consistent.  After I was being more consistent in the walk I moved up to the trot. To start with it wasn't great because I wasn't being firm enough when asking him to drop in to an outline. I decided that I wanted to work on going in to an outline in the walk, asking for ...

For my lesson this week I got to ride Vettie, I had the choice between him and Gatsby. I chose Vettie because he is a lot easier to ride and also because he wouldn't hurt my hips because he is not as wide as Gatsby. Before I got on Vettie I explained what had happened and we decided that we were just going to take the lesson easy. We did a lot of walk work, working on getting him to an outline but I was having difficulty with my left shoulder so we put him on his bungees (not sure if i spelt that right). This was to help me get in the outline but I needed to remember that I needed to keep working not just let them do all of the work.  When we moved up to doing the trot work I was struggling to keep my position still but Fiona said that was to be expected after the accident earlier in the week. I still got some nice trot work but it's not as nice as the work that I had got out of him the week before. We also worked on doing some shoulder in and leg yields and it was so ...

Today has been a good day for my riding. I was riding Vettie today and after the two good lessons I had had last weekend I was feeling a lot more confident about my riding. I knew that I wanted to work on my position mainly my legs as my right legs heel comes up.    I spent a while warming up making sure that Vettie was nice and loose. I also wanted to make sure that I had got an energetic walk so that when I wanted to pick up the contact it would be easier to do. When I started picking up the contact I was surprised that Vettie was listening incredibly well to me and I was able to drop him in to an outline. Two weeks ago I had been struggling with getting Vettie in to an outline but this week I could do it. Once I'd got the outline more consistent in the walk I moved up to the trot.  In the trot I had to find the right balance between being firm and half halting him and keeping the energy flowing. It was important that I kept my position very tight and didn'...

Yesterday I had a ride on Vettie. It went so much better than last week. I was still having major difficulties with my legs but I was able to move more with my seat and move up in to trot which felt amazing. He's got such a big trot that I find it really hard to stay still in my position but I know that slowly but surely I will get there and I'll be able to ride how I want to. We carried on working on keeping my seat swinging and keeping Vettie forwards. The whole time I was also trying to get/keep Vettie in an outline, I struggled with this because my core muscles weren't really working and also because I struggle to keep my hands still (something I need to work on more). I also need to remember that the key to getting Vettie working well is lots of circles and serpentines basically things that keep his mind working.  At the end of the lesson I came on to a circle and got some really nice work which proved to me that I Can ride him. I think what I need to remember...

Todays been a really good day for me, I was doubting my riding ability after the lesson that I had last week but I feel more confident that I can ride and I do know what I'm doing. I'm not going to go in to detail about my lesson in this post for two reasons one) I've not put the photo's on my camera two) I'm really tired at the minute.  This evening we had bonfire night in Duffield which I got free entry in to because I was marshalling for it which was really good. In another new's I've also get a new camera lens but I'm going to leave you all in suspicion as to what lens it is! So stay tuned.  Until Next Time  A Girl With A Dream 

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...

This is just a quick post guys as today's been a long day.  I had own a pony day today and we all had a really good time. I got to ride Vettie and I was getting much quicker at being able to adapt to him and also to move with him. We had some lovely trot work and I really enjoyed all the work that I did with him. I was able to trot for longer periods of time than I had been able to before and was really happy with what I got done.  But before that we all picked a stable to muck out and if needed put new bedding in. I picked Gatsby he'd absolutely trashed his stable last night! So I had quite a bit of work todo at this point all the ponies/horses were out. Then little Rocky managed to escape from where he was supposed to be, so Fussy and him got bought in. During this time Hazel was winding up Gatsby and Rascal so they were chasing around the field. So after Elaine had bought Hazel in, I bought Gatsby in and Elaine got Rascal. The next group to bring in were Sam, Pumpk...

I really like this photograph. I don't know what it is about it that makes me like it but I do.    I love my position (other than my hands) in this photograph. I really struggle to keep my leg in place and I love how in this photograph they're where they are supposed to be just need more weight down the back of my leg. I love the angle of Vettie's legs in this photograph. I also love how floaty he looks. Excuse my awful Right Leg! I can never manage to keep this leg where it is supposed to be! So annoying  LOVE THIS PHOTOGRAPH!  He really makes me sit up in my position, just about to go rising trot here so tilting slightly forwards. Also not the best leg position! Look how big his stride looks would love to see this in a video.  I really like this photograph I think the look on my face kind of says it all!  I'm slowly getting there, towards the end of my lesson I was starting to ask for an ou...

Today I got to ride Vettie again, he's such a lovely horse and really is helping me to improve. When I first got on him he felt quite lazy but as we got going I was able to really get him moving and get him in an outline. Compared to last time he didn't feel as bouncy and like I was going to bounce out of the saddle and I'm not sure whether this was because he was less energetic (which I don't think he was) or if it was because I'm starting to become more used to his stride as he does have a really big stride. We stretched him out nicely before asking him to pick up an outline and when I did pick up the outline it felt amazing. I was able to find it and get hold of it quicker this time and even managed to get a few strides of it in the trot. I feel like I can do more of what I want to do now and can feel my riding improving.  However my hip was locked in place this week, it was really aching by the time I got off but I felt great. I think it's because my hi...

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 ...