Another lake ride

So  today we rode to the lake. The weather forecast lied to us about it being sunny. Until we were almost home of course, then a bit of sun broke through, just in time to get this pic of Kinna cantering like a sensible big grown up horsie

She has been a total star today, no spooking, no bucking, no throwing her toys out of the pram about not being allowed to graze, no acting up when a load of baby Lippizaners came hooleying up to the fence (why do they breed so many? Are they destined for lasagne or Ikea meatballs?)

We have been past massive tractors, several bonfires, lots of yapping dogs (some loose), through dense woodland requiring some contortion from her rider, over ditches, up and down steep banks, through massive puddles and she has calmly done it all

 

She really has exceeded my expectations today :-)

She even went for a splash in the lake

Sky on the other hand was a pain in the arse, because she wanted the grass, so there was the usual protest in the form of planting, going backwards, stopping dead and doing a little prance about, so that, coupled with the fact that she was cold due to the lack of sun, caused the SNO to bail out when we got to Jane's, so she went to the lake in the car with her father and Sky got to spend all day in the field being chased around by Maverick. She must have annoyed him as she's got a huge bite mark on her back!

Managed to get her to do a bit of sensible cantering on the way home though.....

Hacking solo and in company.....

Another first for the girl today, I asked her to leave the house on her own with me on her back not on the end of a leadrope. Took about 10 minutes to get her out of the gate, but she didn't try to go backwards, just needed time to think about stuff I reckon. We set off in search of Jane et al, rather slow progress as she kept stopping and looking at stuff, and trying to make a sidestep to the verge for a quick snack  but I just let her take her time and eventually she decided to get on with things......

After a couple of kms, we met the others, she got a little bit excited but was generally OK. I was talking to one of the other riders I hadn't met before and I just let Sky do her own thing which was basically try to keep up with the others, Ocarina was way out in front as usual, Maverick trotting and showing off the whole time, the two draught horses pulled faces at us and the little chestnut at the back was the only one prepared to let us walk alongside!

We rode with them for a km or two, then they turned off up the hill and I didn't want to overdo it on Sky so we headed home.

Had to get off to get her to leave the others but after a bit of calling she followed me willingly enough and I led her down the hill. Then I found a handy tree stump to get back on and rode home. She didn't even try to rush back, just made a few more attempts to stop for grass......

Very pleased with her :-)

Lovely day with my daughter

Went for a nice Bank Holiday ride on Monday. Ali and I rode up to Jane's in Bonneville, then swapped our two mounts for Ocarina and Maverick. Ali put him through his jumping paces again, he seems to quite enjoy it....

...and I did some more of the bending stuff with Ocarina. She's very stiff on the left rein and leans in like a motorbike, I've been trying to get her to stop leaning in and flex better.....

There were some nice soft moments but she's very resistant to the hand sometimes and tense through her neck

She's also in a hurry all the time so we did some standing still and doing nothing practise and I worked on slowing her down every time she rushed.

Jane wants me to come and work with her regularly, might have to find time to do that......

Nice ride home afterwards too :-)

Ocarina.....

Went up to Jane's today to see the big girl, Jane hasn't had time to do much with the horses recently as she's been busy working, but as I had the afternoon off from the SNO she asked me to come and show her some of this stuff I'd been doing with Chester. So I have lent her my Philippe Karl DVD and I showed her some of the "high hands" stuff today. Ocarina tends to lean on the bit and not take much notice of a contact so we did some groundwork first.

She went from this

to this in a relatively short time

then we progressed to mounted work

She has formed a real attachment to Maverick and if he went out of sight it all went out the window, so that's going to need some work too.......and she's always trying to rush everywhere too so Jane's going to work on getting her to slow down a bit.

Ali asked if she could ride Mav (something she wouldn't even have considered doing a year ago, shows how much having Fina has done for her confidence). He tried the usual stuff (napping, reversing) to get out of doing some work, you could almost see him thinking how much he could try and get away with, I reckon he thought he'd retired ;-)  but she got him listening to her and they had some fun

Lake ride

Well today Chester and Seraphina have been  total stars. As it was a sunny bank holiday, Ali & I went out for the day, we rode all the way from here to the lake, which is 14kms each way. We have been cantering all over the place, Ches has pretty much got the hang of going straight into canter from a walk, not even a hint of a buck (presumably because it's too much like hard work with me on board), not too much pulling, the only annoying thing is his constant quest to eat so as I'm encouraging him to stretch forward and down he always tries to get a sneaky mouthful of grass...

Only one spook,at a dog that sneaked up on us behind a hedge, but the others spooked at it too.....

We collected Jane & Ocarina on the way and spent the rest of the time failing to keep up with her, when she walks, ours have to trot and when she trots, we canter!!

Ches was fascinated by the donkeys near the lake, he wanted to go and investigate them but the ran away from him!

Mike met us with a picnic, and we went for a play in the water with the horses...

Can't believe the weather, it's nearly 20 degrees in November!