Back to the horses....

So enough ranting and messing about with online awards (for now), and back to what the horses have been up to.....

Have done a couple of lungeing/long lining sessions with Sky. It was somewhat noticeable that Sky seems less than impressed with this idea, I'm pretty sure she thinks she should just be a field ornament. So she decided to try and bog off on the lunge, then did some nice airs above the ground when asked to canter. When these cunning plans failed to result in me going away and leaving her alone to eat grass, she grudgingly got with the programme and did some vaguely reasonable circles on both reins.

But, as with Chester, it is painfully obvious she finds going round in circles a bit dull. So do I, to be honest, so I put on some long reins and took her out for a spin. This resulted in very much more in the way of cooperation, in fact she didn't even look back at Tari, but strode out ahead. And didn't stop and try to eat, either, for a change!

Yes, I know, her tail is disgusting, because she doesn't lift it high enough and poos in it. I do occasionally try to wash it, honest!!

Then today I took the old boy out for a ride, for the first time in weeks due to him having had COPD. He hasn't been coughing for a while though so I thought I'd see what he was like out and about. Turns out he was absolutely fine, we only did about 5kms but a good half of that was at trot (his choice) and a couple of times he broke into a canter without too much distress in the breathing department.

We went over the river for the first time in months and discovered that the calcaire track has been resurfaced with new gravel which seems to meet with Gandalf's approval as he walked and trotted along it quite happily without constantly trying to get on to the verge. And Ches didn't even spook at the plastic-festooned tractor ;-)

Polework......

Kinna was very funny today. Got her and Fina out to do a bit of polework. Put Kinns on the long lines, she decided she'd rather hooley around than pay attention for a bit........eventually got her attention and showed her some poles to walk over, in an attempt to get her to work out where she needs to put her feet which isn't always her strong point.......

What's this?

OK, what do I do now?

Got it, I think!

Then did a bit on just one lunge line, when she was paying attention she was great, but she kept trying to take off after Ali and Fina.....

So after I'd got her to listen to me for a bit, I let her off and she was hilarious......

Ali and Fina were practising bending over poles, she is quite stiff through the neck, particularly to the right, she tends to lean in and "motorbike" rather than bending through her body.

Hopefully doing this kind of thing regularly will help, along with some TTouch massage. Ali is purposefully keeping the reins loose and using her hands as little as possible so Fina doesn't do her arguing and bracing through the neck thing. She decided to try her in the Myler today to see if she went better than in the bitless. With very little rein pressure, she seemed fine with it. Will try her jumping in it next.......

She also tried the circle of poles exercise that she's been shown by Louise, kind of like this, but we're not worrying about the number of strides.....

........some work to do there!

Lungeing....

Thought as she's three now I probably ought to get round to trying a bit of lungeing with Sky, so we had a first go today. Not ideal in the field across the road as the grass is a huge distraction and mademoiselle tried to tell me to get lost as she wanted to carry on eating at first!!

We only did about 5 minutes, walk and trot on both reins, she soon worked out what to do though......

Left it at that for today and let her stuff her face for a while as a reward :-)

The Saga of Seraphina

Well, today was interesting......

Got a phone call before 9am, immediately thought 'the bloody horses are out again' but it wasn't mine, it was Seraphina!! Started rushing the troops out the door to get straight down there, but then got another call to say she'd been found. Interestingly, the pony belonging to the neighbours had also got loose during the night, so did something scare them, like a sanglier?

Anyway, made our leisurely way down to Rochelle's. Had a fantastic Mexican lunch. Got Seraphina in, groomed her, tacked her up, took her out to the round pen for some free lungeing. She was as good as gold, despite the Small Naughty One being noisy and trying to get under her feet all the time.

 So Ali hopped on, all OK, until I went to adjust the stirrups. Was it because Ali shifted her weight to one side, or did I inadvertently knock her with the stirrup? Whatever it was, she took off, initially at a trot but then she got faster as the weight on her back shifted more to one side. Then Ali screamed, which made it a whole lot worse. By the time I got to her to stop her (and bashed my face on her side, people keep asking me if I've been in a fight!), Ali was on the deck, but she was luckily just shaken, not really hurt.

So that's youngsters for you.....after that, I took her for a walk in the woods in hand, no probs. Took her into the paddock and tried her with a cooler rug, no problems. She didn't like the rustly winter rug though, we eventually got it on her back all folded up after she'd run away from it a few times but when she was OK with that we called it a day.

She's still a sweetheart. We're hoping to go down the next time the trainer comes so Ali can see how she goes....

Oh, and we measured her, she's only 13.2hh. She's got some growing to do if she's going to get as big as mum and dad!