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...

Well I have finally got around to naming my baby horse and he is called magic for short. His posh/show name isn't set in concrete yet but it will be either mystical black magic, black magic or maybe even midnight magic, I've not decided yet, I just know that his name will be magic. I'll let you know more when I know more.  Now I wanted to ask whether you guys had an opinion on clicker training, and if you think it works or not. This is something that I haven't worked with before but am doing my research in to. I also wondered how you guys that have got baby horses got them used to wearing a head collar/halter and did you guys use a foal slip? Obviously I'm just learning and need to do lots more research but I would also be extremely grateful for any opinions or advice that you guys have!  In other news I have joined the gym and am on a mission to lose weight, tone up and get fit. Hopefully I'll start to see some results soon, but I'll keep you guys ...

Well for those of you that have been reading my blog for a while you will know that I've always wanted to try riding bareback but that I have never had the opportunity to do it before. A couple of weeks ago I told Fiona that I really wanted to do it and explained that I thought that it would help me really be able to feel how to get Gatsby in to an outline. After explaining this Fiona said I could have a go and three weeks later thats exactly what I got to do. I started out by riding with the saddle, just to be able to warm up, making sure that I could swing in the saddle without feeling restricted, we did a bit of walk, trot and canter work and mainly focused on getting him in the outline. I wanted to make sure that Gatsby was forward but also that he was willing accepting contact and moving in to the outline. I wanted him to feel that he was doing the right thing by accepting small amounts of pressure on the rein and only having to occasionally reinforce the contact and make it ...

Well I got reminded last night that I don't think I ever posted on here the results from my dressage competition, I didn't manage to place in either of the tests but the good news is that in both of them I was one place of placing. I got 7th in both and even managed to get a '9' score on my first test. My riding was better in the walk trot test because I had a bit of a melt down in the second test because instead of focusing on what I was doing I was stressing about who was judging me however I didn't come last on either of them so I was quite happy. Gatsby was a star that day, I still need to put the videos on youtube but as soon as I have put them up I will post them here and you can let me know what you guys think.  These are just a couple of photographs that were taken at the show, these are my two favourites and the one at the top is even my laptop screensaver, after having done one show I have realised that I would love to do another one. But first I wa...

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...

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...

Well guys, I don't think that this post is going to be very long from me as I am still not quite 100%  back to normal. I've been on antibiotics all week for my throat but that is not getting any better and my ear is now starting to get painful as to. So I think on a day off I need to get back to the doctors.  Saturday I had my weekly lesson on Gatsby and to say it was eventful was an understatement. It started off really well, Gatsby was warming up nicely, he was providing me with a good stretch before I even asked him to pick up the contact in both walk and trot. He was a little bit lazy off the leg but other than that he was being very well behaved.  When I started asking him to pick up the contact he was willing to do it, we needed to get more hind end engagement but it was still really really good. He was soft and forward, we did a small amount of canter because it was important for Gatsby and I not to over do it with the canter work before we tried riding th...

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 ...

Today has been a good day but a long day at the stables, I got there for 9.30 this morning to help Fiona out and Suzanne came up to help out too. We had all the horses to muck out and the weather was horrible, it was chucking it down. I mucked out Little Rocky, Percy, Gatsby, Soly and Sam's stable. I then put in their stables Gatsby (the trouble maker), Sam, Vettie, Chloe, Fussy, Rosie and then Fiona did the others. We then started debating bedding, for the past few months the stables have had straw pellet bedding in, but it looks dirty all the time. Yes it's easier to muck out but it doesn't look good. Thursday Fiona decided to put in Bliss bedding, this looks amazing, and smells clean and fresh BUT is a nightmare to muck out, it takes forever, it clumps together and you end up taking to much of the bedding out. So we're going back to using Aqua max bedding at the minute. That looks clean and fresh and is easy to muck out but it's expensive!  After I'd f...

Today was the first ride of the year and it was an eventful ride, it wasn't the best riding that we have ever done but it was good enough for me to know what I need to work on before my competition in march.  We started up warming up, Fiona said that I needed to figure out what the optimal warm up time for both Gatsby and I is, for us this is no more than 20 minutes, probably 10 minutes in walk/trot stretching,  followed by 5 minutes to completely stretch out at a walk and relax, then another 5 minutes starting to collect him and add a couple of little bits of canter in! I've got to remember that this is mine and Gatsby's first trip out together so we might not win but we can only do the best that we can do. Also that I am not to put myself under extra pressure just because this competition is at Broomfield, yes there are going to be people there that want to see what Gatsby is like now but I am not to let that bother me.  stretching and Gatsby doing his giraffe...