Nearly got that summer coat through! He’s very pretty at the moment but I do wish the last of his clip would grow out. I asked my brother in law for a photoshoot of me and Dino for my birthday and it’s only in three weeks. I don’t want him to have a clip line still!!! Also: I need to work out what sort of pictures I want…

We had another lesson this week, and as well as travers in walk Katie made us try it in trot! Dino was completely perplexed. [What on earth is travers? This!] We did manage a few steps though so we’ll get practising next week. I haven’t ridden since Wednesday though – freeschooled on Thursday as I had to get to the pub, and then lunged today because there were lessons going on. But I will ride tomorrow! Katie thinks we’re making progress, but it is slow. I am trying not to get too frustrated. His hip seems a bit better this week though; he’s stepping under mostly ok on that side and his canter is feeling more normal.

Been a busy week at work so the pony has been on livery more than usual and generally had a quiet week. We did crack the boots out for a posh matchy-matchy ride on Wednesday though! Although I totally overslept and missed my lesson with Katie which was dumb.

Hoping to get a bit more riding in next week. I do feel like we’re beginning to get somewhere – he was pretty springy on Wednesday. That hip is still a bit stiff but a few brief steps of canter didn’t feel anywhere like as bad so at least we’re getting over these little hiccups quicker each time. Need to stop them happening though really. Will try and fit some polework in this week if I can!!

Not been doing very well at keeping up recently, have I? Things have been pretty mad at work and there’s been a lot of other stuff going on so it’s hard to keep on to of posting.

Well, happily the weather has dried out!! We found some secret mud fever that Dino had been hiding but it wasn’t serious and now he’s out in his summer rugs and the fields are looking pretty good. So…he’s muzzled. But I’d rather he was out with restricted grass intake than stuck inside!

We’ve had a bit of an up and down few weeks. About three weeks ago we did some free jumping, which he loves, and it was all going swimmingly until this happened:

I’m not quite sure where he thought that fence was, but apparently he has ambitions! He was fine for the rest of this session but when I rode him in my lesson a couple of days later he’d definitely pulled his hips ‘out’ again. Mostly on the left side, which as we know is his weaker one. The jumpies were fun though:

So we’ve been rehabbing the hip again. David (osteopath) was out today and did a bunch of tweaking and agrees that whilst he’s slightly sore in both hips his left is the worst, but it does seem to be improving so hopefully one treatment will be enough to help it on its way!

In general though things are feeling better. He’s almost grown his clip out (at last!!!) and I managed to spend some time sitting with him in his stable whilst he was lying down last week. This is always so special <3