A little catch up. Saturday, hacked out with Jim. Anky was quite good, a little nappy a couple of times, but she went when asked. We discovered a new track and had a good ride.
Sunday, had a lovely day out in Perigueux with my friend Bev, the weather was glorious but very hot and tiring.

Today I took Anky in the school. I started with stretching on a long rein and she seemed better today. Then we worked on walk halt transitions and she seemed more steady in the hand and a little more relaxed. She seemed straighter on the left rein today. Practised a few turns on the haunches and then some walk trot transitions. She's still rushing into the transition,but it seemed a little better today.
We finished as we started with some stretching on a long rein.

I dismounted to clear some droppings from the school, so I put up the stirrups and tied the reins through the throat lash. I went to get the shovel leaving her standing at the gate. As I set off walking away from her she just followed me. As I moved, so did she, we ended up walking all around the arena, changing directions, halting , circling. She was very relaxed and very focussed on me, it was great.

Gentle Work in the School.

In the school again with Anky. She was a little more relaxed today, it was very hot so started with leading work, halts, change of direction to get her to focus on me. She followed my movements very well, at one point from standing facing her in halt I moved sideways crossing my legs and she followed my movements by moving sideways and crossing her front legs.

So I'd got her to focus on me and she was relaxed so I got on. I wanted to work on the lateral stretching on a loose rein first and she was ok on the right rein, still reluctant on the left. I worked on flexion at the halt, followed by the transition to walk, then stretching out to my hand, good on the right rein.

On the left rein I wanted to try to mobilise the inside shoulder. At halt I asked for flexion to the left, transition to walk, moving the inside shoulder to the right, she finds this difficult, but after a few attempts she improved a litle. Then, I asked for flexion to the left into a turn around the forehand, a better feel in the outside rein, try to keep this walking forward retaining flexion left. We finished with stretching on a long rein, with improvement to the left.

A very gentle and rewarding session. It's basic work, but I think it's the key to obtaining relaxation of the jaw, eliminating the tension I feel in every session.

I took Anky up to the school today. I started her off on the lunge, but she was full of herself, paying me very little attention, trotting and cantering around. I persevered and she started to listen, but was still very tense, so I changed to some leading work with a little in hand, asking for slight flexion and then moving her quarters around the forehand. She tends to rush 3 or 4 quick strides, so I concentrated on first the flexion, then ask, one stride and then halt. It calmed her and she started to concentrate more on me than the gremlins around the school!!

I then sat on and started with lateral stretching at walk with a fairly long rein, she finds it hard to relax and stretch so I was pleased with the results on the right rein. On the left rein she is very reluctant and tends to twist her neck and try to tip her nose. I worked on flexions at the halt, asking for flexion and then a transition to walk. Good on the right rein with nice stretch out to the hand. Left rein, ask for flexion, ok, but asking for the transition to walk the same tendency to twist the neck and tip the nose. It felt very much like the inside shoulder was grounded, asked again, at the same time asking the inside shoulder to move away and it was much better, worked on turn around the forehand at walk and then returned to the flexion at halt, transition to walk. Much better, less crooked through the neck and got a nice stretch out to the hand. Finished as we started with lateral stretching at walk, some improvement, following my hand out and down, much more relaxed.

Took Remy onto the yard, short session of leading work, little distracted but a good boy.

Easy Few Days

I've had a few days away from my horses. Out with a friend yesterday and today I went to a Western Riding, training and riding demo. It's not really my thing, but I found it quite interesting, especially the early training with the young horses. The flexion and stretching training done off the head collar and the work on moving the horse around using just body language (Monty Roberts style). I have to say, I much prefer the work of Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling.

She lost my interest when she explained about young competition horses being started at 2 years old, in full work by 3 including sliding stops, spins etc. It must ruin their joints, blow their minds as well no doubt. Apparently, like most equine disciplines, it's big business!!
Anyway, all being well, back to my horses tomorrow...

Our Hay is Made!!

Back in the school today. Lunged first, much better than yesterday.Rode after lungeing, worked on Walk-Halt-Walk transitions, then tried some Walk-Trot transitions, more relaxed today.

As you can see, our hay is cut and baled!!!! Yippee.

New School, Finally Finished!

Now the school has finally been finished I thought I would test it out. With the fence in place I thought I would start lungeing Anky. I'm going to lunge her before I ride to try and loosen her up a little. Today, she started off quite edgy and distracted (nothing new there then!!) and I didn't want her hanging on the lunge line, she also wouldn't stay out on the circle so we ended up with very sloppy lungeing to say the least. Anyway, I'm sure I'll get lots of practice this summer. LOL
After lungeing, I had a short session onboard, still uptight and throwing her head up, but some reasonable moments.



I like my new school!
Here's a little vid that Jim did, it's a bit clearer if you press the HQ button.

Bloody Hell, I don't know why this video is taking up so much room!!!!!
edit. Managed to resize the vid, thanks Trudi.

A little "Wow" moment.

I rode Anky today, we went for a hack with Jim and Corky.
It was a lovely morning, not too hot and luckily not too many flies. I supplied the horses with natty little fly fringes for the occasion.

We went our usual circular ride and Anky was very calm and in a kind of couldn't care less, follow the leader mood. That was ok, she was fairly forward and relaxed and I wanted a nice quiet ride.
Horses always know when you get to the point where your direction changes towards home and at this point Anky decided that, yes, she could quite happily get us home from that point and took the lead.
There is a horsey place on the way back and the track takes you between two of their fields. It's lovely at this time of year as there are always several mares and foals in the fields. Our horses have never really been worried by this, they're interested but not stupidly so. Today one of the mares was on top form and started running around the field, other mares and foals in tow. Anky was quite concerned by this and I'm not sure if she wanted to join in or get away, anyway she spun round and as we had electric fences on either side of us, after my little episode with Corky (here) the other day, we decided to trot on.
Wow, as soon as I asked her for trot, she bounced up and forward into my hand, carrying herself like a pro. It was really great! A lovely light, forward feeling, active and soft in the hand.
I've done hardly any trot work with her and certainly never had a trot like this before (probably never will again LOL) so I now know exactly what I'm aiming for!!
When we got to the top of the track, came back to walk, she was still on her toes, but listening. She calmed very quickly and for the remainder of the ride was forward and relaxed with some nice stretching and softening to the hand.
I think it was one of the best rides I've had with Anky. It's made my day.

Trop de mouches!!!

Title says it all! I hacked out with Corky again today, she needs to be fitter so I'm going to try and fitten her up slowly over the summer.
The enjoyment factor was next to nil because of the blasted flies. Corky was using all her energy in the wrong way by jogging and shaking her head, can't blame her really. I ended up wafting her with a big fern dragged out of a hedgerow. I bet it looked quite funny. One of those bloody horse-flies bit me too!

I suppose it was worthwhile as we both got some exercise and I reckon we're both going to get fit together!

The Sunshine Returns

After a couple of gloomy days, today was glorious and I took Corky for a hack. She was a very good girl and she promised not to buck me off today. She didn't!!

After lunch I went up to the sand school with Jim, we've had a few distractions this last few weeks, but we're close to finishing the fence now. With my limited experience of fence building I was only allowed to hold the rails, but Jim assured me I'd been a big help!.......Yeah!!!!! LOL

Anyway it's not quite finished, we need a gate and a leveller, but here are a couple of pics.

An Easy Day Today

I'm tired today so thought I'd have a day off from riding and give them all a spruce up.
So, they've all had a good refreshing wash, grooming, eyes, ears, mane, tail, feet, most importantly, bot eggs removed, (ughh, I hate doing that!!) fly tags replaited in.
They're all in the field now looking very spiffy. I don't know what I was thinking, it would have been far less tiring to ride!!!

Lovely Day Out.

I had a lovely day out today, the first in quite a while.
I went over to see Trudi and it cheered me up no end. I got to ride Moo which was a nice bonus and spent a couple of hours chatting over a nice bottle of wine. What more can one ask for!! I'm off to bed now, absolutely shattered , but in a good way!!

Ooops!!

I took Corky out for a ride again today. I was tired when I got up this morning and thought a nice relaxing hack in the sunshine would revitalise me. Hee heee. Best laid plans of mice and men comes to mind!!

My plan was to check out a track that I'd found on the map but couldn't see from the road, so off we went.
The track starts about a mile up our little lane, but as it was in the opposite direction to our normal ride, Corky was a little reluctant and gave me her, "I'm on my last legs" walk.
Anyway, we arrived (eventually) and set off down the track. Corky did tell me at the top that it was a waste of time, so when we reached a dead end I took her "I told you so" with good grace. Of course, we retraced our steps with a little huffing and puffing (from Corky, not me) and a little more pace.

We got back on the lane and half way down I spied a track which looked quite promising, so, to Corkys disgust I turned her off the lane down the track.

I have to say that by this time she was tutting at me for REALLY wasting her time and made the decision that it was time to go home. She gave a resigned little sigh and started to turn round on the small track.
Unfortunately for both of us, we hadn't seen the low electric fence and before I could straighten her up, she backed into it.
I wish I could have recorded what happened next, I reckon it would have been hilarious. It was quite a blur, but I know that she touched it 3 times, the first time she leapt forward still turning, ran into it and bucked, spun around and backed into it again and promptly bucked me off.
As my ailing body hit the deck, my first thought was, why didn't I manage to stay on??

Luckily, Corky headed for home "as the crow flies", jumped the small fence and legged it down the field toward a group of very startled cows. As she trotted up and down the far fence it sruck me how good she looked and how freely she was moving!!!!
My next thoughts, as the cows decided to have a closer look at her, were that I hope she doesn't panic and try to get out onto the lane, and I don't think I can walk home from here.
She didn't panic, just waited impatiently at a small gate, and as I walked down to her she came to me, as if to say, there you are, can you get me out of here please?
So after I'd apologised and explained to the bemused farmer what had happened and would he please check his fence as it was a little bit loose, I remounted and came home. Corky seemed none the worse for her adventure.

Strawberries and Cream

I went down to the stables this morning without much of a plan. Anky's coming into season and as she gets discomfort, my first thought was to give her a rest and perhaps give Remy a good grooming and then do some leading work with him.

Before I even got to the door I could hear snoring coming from inside. It was Bonbon flat out, away with the fairies, Anky was also sleeping and Remy was also lying down but not asleep.
I went into the stable with him, gave him a good rub and scratch all over, but it wasn't enough to convince him to get up!

So, poor old Corky drew the short straw and we went out for a ride. She was quite lively and whinnied on and off for the first ten minutes. It was very enjoyable, she felt like she had lots of energy. We had a lovely ride in the sunshine and arrived home just before it started to rain. I must try to get her fitter.

I had my first chance to check out the garden today. Aaaaaaggh!!
I've not been up to gardening for a while and there are no signs whatever of all my earlier efforts to keep it tidy.
My strawberries seem to have overcome my lack of attention and we've been getting lots for Jim to make his jam, I picked some more today, so it's strawbs and cream later!!

Back in the School

The weather was very iffy today, but I managed to get 30 minutes in the school with Anky.
It's been quite a while since we went in there and she was edgy to say the least. My objective was to get her to relax and listen. LOL
Jim was up there starting on the fence so he took a few pics for me.

Anyway I was pleased with her because she did relax, we worked down at the scary wood end of the school and she remained fairly calm.

We did some nice Walk Halt Walk transitions and worked on Counter Shoulder-In on the long side. We've never done this before but I think it's really going to help with straightness.
This is Anky checking out the scary wood!

And a couple of us attempting Counter Shoulder-In.

Haylage Monsters

Well we were rained off yesterday, but today we(Jim and I) managed to get out for a ride in a nice bright spell.
They've just baled their second cut of silage here,(I'm sure it was good enough to be haylage!! sigh....)and as we rounded a corner we came across a herd of haylage monsters just waiting to pounce. Corky was taken by surprise, ("they've never been there before"!!!) and as leader of our little group, took immediate action!! It was quite funny really, Corky does have her dizzy blonde moments and she really took exception to the dangerous specimens before us. It always makes me laugh when Corky does this, she really can spin round and go backwards rather quickly. Jim wasn't laughing though, he'd only signed up for a nice sedate walk out!! Of course, Anky was convinced by all this and decided to take evasive action of her own. I'm sure she was just practising her pirouettes, but gave a very good impression of a spinning top. Anyway they both calmed a little, but Corky was adamant and shook her head forcefully when he asked her to go forward. We were very close to the road, so Jim, rather tactfully, dismounted and led Corky past. Anky was happy to follow, this time practising her half-passes. LOL
We continued the ride, Anky was hyped up, but she settled quickly and started to relax and stretch over her neck into my hand. All-in-all an eventful, but very enjoyable ride. Both horses and riders came back happy and relaxed.
I do love riding!!

Hacking Out........

yes, that's what I did today. Yay!!
Not very interesting, I know, but after yet another very iffy couple of weeks, it felt like an acheivement.
Jim came with me on Corky and we did the little ride down the lane. Anky was a very good girl. I wish I had some pics because it felt so good.
These are pics of the last time I rode her. I don't look very happy, but truly I was. I'm obviously concentrating on some very complicated dressage movements. LOL!!!!

Seamus O'reilly........

... or Shea as I called him was a very large grey Irish Sports Horse who crossed my path a good few years ago. My farrier put me on to him, had seen him at one of the yards he was shoeing at. He was very skinny and neglected. To cut a long story short, I managed to get him, a 17.2hh gawky bundle of nerves (not such a great idea as i had a 17hh warmblood at the time!!). He was very withdrawn, very wary of men, we discovered he had air rifle pellets in his chest, a large bony lump on the side of his head and he was terrified of whips. You get the picture?

I got to know him and he got to know me and he was the most gentle horse I'd ever known. I loved him! I'd had him a few years and I got ill so I had to sell him. It was a very difficult decision but he went to a lovely girl who'd always admired him and she took him hunting and eventing (he absolutely loved it).

The reason for this seemingly unconnected post is that I've had a lot of time to waste this last week and, this morning, chatting to a friend on MSN, she said that her friend had seen him on a hunt outing. She said that he looked great.

I've been thinking about him all day, so I dug out a photo and here he is.