The way to heaven is on horseback

So Magic is doing really well, I haven't been up to see him much as unfortunately I am not very well at the moment. This is due to me crashing my car a few weeks ago. So it's fair to say I haven't had a good few weeks. My car was a complete write off. I've seen Magic twice since the accident but he was a little bit more apprehensive of me at the moment due to the fact that I had a splint on my wrist. But I still get videos and photographs of him even when I don't go to see him so that's always nice. I'm just wondering if anyone has any opinions of how to get a head collar on him and when I should do it?  But now on to the riding part of this blog, there will be videos and some photographs to follow later on in the week. yesterday I rode Gatsby. We rode in the school this week instead of the field, but we decided to work on some show jumping and it went really well! We did a baby cross jump and a baby vertical jump. My mum has recently bought me one of t...

Well it's been a long and tiring few days but I have had a good couple of rides too. I rode Gatsby on Sunday and we worked on the Canter. We did this really cool exercise that was really tiring but it was so much fun to do. We warmed up briefly (as Gatsby had already been rode and I was feeling fairly well stretched and warmed up). I got Gatsby working nicely but very very forward in the walk and trot then we moved on to canter the idea was that we did two 20m circles with three poles at three points of the circle. At the fourth point and over 'x' there was a box. The idea was that we would canter over the poles on the 20m circle at 'a' when we got to the box we would come back to trot or walk, and then change the bend picking up the opposite canter lead (because you're going around the circle the opposite way) to go around the circle at 'c'. We were basically doing a canter figure of 8 with a simple change over 'x' building up to doing a flying...

So today I had my half an hour private lesson on Gatsby. Fiona said that I could do some jumping with him and I was really excited. It's been a long time since I've put jumping and enjoyment in the same place. It was nice that it was only half an hour because it meant that I don't get tired easily. We started off doing lots of walk, trot transitions and keeping a nice rhythm.  I then put my stirrups up and did some work going over the poles. When we started jumping we started off with a reasonable sized cross. Gatsby and I had a really nice rhythm so we quickly moved it up to a straight across. We were starting coming up to the jump in trot but Gatsby got excitable and we ended up going over it in canter once two. Fiona said I looked more confident and a lot stronger in my position which was really nice to here. We went over the jump a couple more times all though this time we trotted up to the jump,went over it then cantered up to the long side. Then before we went up...

 Todays plans had a few changes in them but they were all for the best. As you will know I had a great time jumping Gatsby yesterday but I was knackered by the time I got in bed, I got in bed at 8 and went to sleep within about 5 minutes and slept through until about 10ish. When I got up mum told me that there was going to be a change of plans, instead of getting to the stables for 12:30 I got to the stables for 11:30. Fiona said that she would explain when we got there and when she did explain it made a lot more sense. With only having Gatsby and Rocky that we can use I was going to ride Gatsby early on my own and do some jumping I was all for this. In stead of riding for an hour I rode for 45 minutes but it was more consistent work and I wasn't being as lazy as I tend to be, I was working harder and trying to build my stamina up.  I got Gatsby ready to get on him at 12:15, we started warming him up and making sure that from the beginning he is active. Fiona told me not ...

Today was my lesson on Gatsby I was buzzing when we got there, we spent a little while talking to Fiona asking if she had had a good holiday as she had been away to Norfolk and she said she did. She then said that we would sort out a day where I can go up and ride Gatsby from the work that I did this week. I started grooming Gatsby and he was so shiny! He glistened, was really cute. Then I started tacking him up and the funny thing was the minute that we got his tack the heavens opened and it chucked it down, the wind picked up and I was sure it was going to thunder again but luckily it didn't!  When it stopped we all jumped in to action and got in luckily for the rest of the lesson it didn't rain. We also have a new addition to our lesson every other week, her name's Alice and she's really sweet. We all worked on warming up it took some adjusting getting used to there being three of us in the lesson instead of just the two, but we got there in the end. We graduall...