Boot camp seems to be going well......

Sky has been going for her lessons as regularly as possible (when I've not been ill, Ali hasn't ben ill, or it hasn't been snowing) and she's been making good progress. I took the camera along the other day, as the sun was out and most of the mud was scraped off, and watched a bit of the lesson. She seems to be a lot happier in the school, the napping has disappeared and the only problem now is her lack of fitness, she was tired by the end....

Some pictures:

Canter transitions on the right rein are still a problem, Ali was having to really concentrate ;-)

Maybe our baby is finally growing up....?

Is this going to last.....?

So after Kinna's "entertainements" at the weekend, I decided to try and do something with her every day for a week to see if that would calm things down a bit. Monday I took her for a walk in hand, that was mostly calm, but when we got back to the grassy bit across the road and tried to do a couple of circles, she exploded again at not being allowed to eat. I eventually got a couple of vaguely calm cirlcles out of her and left it at that.

Tuesday we were out all day taking Fina to Sheila's but when we got back it was still light so I took her over the road for a graze for about 20 minutes. Just before going back I tried another circle or two, and she was actually OK with it, presumably because she'd been allowed to eat first......

Yesterday, she outdid herself. We went for a hack, there was a bit of bouncing around at the start but nothing serious and the rest of the time she was really good. She didn't turn a hair at the noisy dogs and didn't even spook at any birds  ;-)

When we came to a grassy slope I decided to try a little canter. Fearing another explosion, I got Ali off first......but she was good as gold!

And when we got back, we jumped the ditch, no problems and did some circles on the grass, no rearing, no bucking......

Good girl :-)

Gandalf's gone on his holidays.....

Rode the boy down to Tanya's today as we're off to Paris then London to watch the other half run marathons so he's going to have a couple of weeks off from the bullying girlies and can chill out with Ches and Polo without getting pushed around (as much).

Took Sky along for the exercise, by the end of the ride she'd finally got the message that I wanted her to canter sensibly alongside Gandalf rather than bucking, biting and trying to blat off ahead of him.....

Gandalf was full of beans and did an average of 7.8 km/h, trotting and cantering the whole way. Not sure if that was because he wanted to keep up with Marathon Man or whether he knew he was going to Tanya's where there's lots of grass and no one to annoy him.

Took us ages to cross the main road in the village, the horses were both very patiently waiting to cross and ignoring all the large lorries rattling past when a bloke in a car parked (in the way) on the pavement called Mike over and told him horses had no business being near such a busy road! Tant pis, monsieur.......

Here's the map.

Then we walked back with Sky on her own, along the main road with its big rattly lorries and she didn't worry about them at all. Kept trying to deafen us neighing for the others though.......

The girls will be going into my neighbour's paddock tonight which has lots of grass, so they'll be happy........

Snow!

It very rarely snows here in the Dordogne. But yesterday it did, big time!! Seraphina looked right at home......

It froze overnight so was all still there today, but the sun came out. No school for the girls so we went for a walk. Seraphina was in fine form......

......Sky was a bit unsettled to start with, she was especially concerned about this snowman:

But he didn't try anything, so she decided he was safe to walk past!
We did a bit of ditch jumping.....

...and Ali enjoyed cantering on the snow....

And we didn't have to worry about slipping as they're not shod :-)

What Sundays are for......

Got loads done today, went out for a hack this morning with the Speed Twins, Gary and Hollie, here's the  map and photos, we did a bit of ditch jumping practise, Gandalf and Polo, no problem, but Sorcier had to be persuaded over most of them!! Gandalf wore himself out again trying (and failing)to keep up with Sorcier.....

Then this afternoon I went out with my girls, Skyfaxa was very good about Fina cantering away....

...in fact nothing bothers her as long as she can eat grass!

Discovered on the way back that she'll do some nice lateral moves if she thinks it'll get her to the grass on the verge!

And we discovered some pretty spotties, one of them looks a lot like Sky's sire, must find out who they belong to.

A lively ride!

Rode Gandalf and Fina down to Tanya's today as they'll be staying with her whilst we're away. Had to take the Small Naughty One with us, and she wanted to do everything that Ali did.....

Cantering......

....jumping ditches

but she did draw the line at jumping the log on the TREC course from the other week. Fina tackled it somewhat faster than Ali was expecting, hence the expression!!

Love 'em!

Riding lesson for the girls.....

As it was a Bank Holiday here today, I took the girls up to the carriere (well OK, school marked out in a field) with the pones. And ended up doing a bit of lesson for them.....

We did a warm up at the walk, going over some of our Trec training course which is still there, then did some riding apart and doing things at opposite ends of the school, getting them to keep the same distance apart, not easy as Ches kept slowing down to wait for Fina and she kept speeding up to get to him!! The girls got them sorted in the end though.

Then we had the inevitable question "Can we do a jump?". Well we did it progressively, walked over, trotted over, and Ches was a total star and did the jump from canter a few times! Didn't push Fina to do it as I don't think she's done any jumping yet. Here's an edited  video of the lesson.

Hollie did excellently well, even when Ches did his party piece at the canter......!

Apparently they want to do this more often.......

We went wine tasting.......

Sarah came up today to ride Seraphina, and we all went out for a nice hack.

Seraphina was as good as gold (apart from a little argument about having to go across a ditch!) and we had some nice canters.

Along the way we went past the Cave Coop so we stopped in so Sarah could try some of the local vino......

The horses were great, just stood there dozing off and didn't even leave any "presents" behind.......
Fun day, must do it more often!

Some news and a hack out......

Very unexpected news yesterday, it would appear that I haven't said goodbye to Seraphina after all.......she can't go to the US because she tested positive for Piroplasmosis so Rochelle's asked if I would have her!

Gutted for Rochelle, after all this time she finally sells her house than she can't take her pony with her......

So Seraphina looks likely to join my motley crew. Need more grazing!!!

Went for a great hack this morning in the sunshine with my doggie and a couple of friends. Here's a video

Ride and lead gets faster.....

More ride and lead today, took Kinna out with Gandalf. Took them down to the stable, Kinna tried to follow me into the barn to get the tack rather than being left with Gandalf...... Think he has done some disciplining of the girls recently (like the other day when Sky tried to get her head in his bucket, he went for the back of her neck and they both galloped off down the hill and he wouldn't leave her alone til she was on the other side of the field, then he galloped back up to his dinner - obviously recovered from Sunday's ride )

She was very unsure to start with and kept her head pressed against my leg, but after a while she relaxed and seemed to be happy enough. The only thing that spooked her was some cows running up to the fence, she was quite interested in the donkeys of doom, here's a little video:

We did quite a bit of trotting, Gandalf was full of beans today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6VqsmilBBY

And even a little canter going up the hill to the village although she can run faster than Gandalf with his little legs, she got a bit ahead of us, good job I always take them out on a long line!

Must get someone to video us doing that one day.....

Very good little girly

Cantering circles

 Aliénor wanted to ride Gandalf today so I asked her to warm him up, then see if she could get him to canter circles as he's great in a straight line but doesn't have a great turning circle.......

The other problem is that all he wants to do is get back to the gate to be near Maverick so she had to work on anticipation his slowing down. It didn't always work, as you can see here

Still, all good for his weight loss programme!

Then I got on and had a go at this month's Interdressage test, here's the video