So I was away last week. I’ll sort my photos out later but just to make you all a little jealous here’s one my boyfriend took of me on a rock:

We went to the Lake District for a week. Did some walking, stayed in one hotel that had a spa with a thermal jet pool thing so we sat in that for a bit, did some more walking, ate lots of food…. It was blissful! Missed Dino though and boy doesn’t do horses at all so it was pretty weird to get no riding at all for a week.

Back home I rode Dino on Saturday and despite all M’s work last week he’s really not right. He was ok out on the bridlepath, although he feels little footy as he has for a bit (and usually does at the tail end of winter after spending 6 months standing in 3 feet of water all day…) but in the school he was very very stiff on the left rein and was reluctant to canter on either rein, not just the left as had originally been the issue. 🙁

Been back in touch with the osteopath and he’ll be out first thing tomorrow to untwangle him! Hopefully it’ll be something obvious and easily addressed! I showed David some videos of him on the lunge a week or so ago and also the one from the gallops a month back and he thinks the left hip/pelvis doesn’t look right on the gallops footage so it’s probably something in that area. I shall update again tomorrow.

Poor Dino has twanged something. A couple of weeks ago I asked for left canter at the end of a jumping session and he bucked. Didn’t really think about it too much as he was tired and we’ve been working hard. Monday last week he did it again, in my lesson, but right at the end. Bit concerning. Saturday *every* time I asked for left canter he bucked 🙁 He was most upset about going from trot to canter on the left. Walk to canter was ok and everything was fine on the right rein.

Monday I emailed our osteopath who said to pessoa him (I know, I know) for a couple of days and see whether it improved. So we’ve done three days of working in the pessoa and I do think he looks better this morning. Some video of him on the lunge here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/silkyraven/16235554933/ Waiting to hear what David wants me to do with him!

In confidence improving news I did something this morning I very very rarely do: I hacked out someone else’s horse – one I’d never ridden before at that 😮 A couple of my friends wanted to go out this morning and I was lamenting that I couldn’t join them as Dino isn’t quite right and Rosie offered to lend me her lovely mare Cleo for the morning. Was very weird riding what felt like a tiny pony (she’s 14HH?) with her little pony trot but she was as good as gold :db:

Such a gorgeous day today! :db: Amazing time was had a that gallops!! There are videos but I can’t embed them from Flickr:

With Claire & Tally in the lead we had a lovely gallop!

Then because Dino was so close to Tally we put him in front….and had a rather nice canter.

We didn’t get it on video but after the second canter we swapped at the top, on the flat, put Tally back in front and had another gallop. Fundamentally Dino doesn’t really see the point of galloping unless he needs to catch up with someone else…!! :wub: Then we spent

I’m pretty pleased with the video. My feet are a bit sticky-out (Heather would not be happy) but I look quite in balance and comfortable. :db:

Well. It was all going a bit smoothly, wasn’t it?

I really need to learn to trust my own judgement and not let other people rattle me. My usually Thursday night jumping partners were not about tonight. We had agreed last week to do some grid-work, over very small fences, partly to rebuild Dino’s confidence after my over-facing him somewhat. Claire was about today but the other two ladies weren’t and instead a couple of the teenagers joined us and a couple of others. There were a lot of people riding in the school and Dino was a bit fazed by this so I should just have left it really but I’d put all the bloody fences out so I wanted to give it a go.

We cantered over the poles on the ground. Fine. Striding looked ok. Put a single fence up, I felt it was fine for Dino. One of the girls (who does a lot of showjumping) started saying she thought the stride was too short and to be fair, her pony was jumping very fast and very flat (in a pelham with roundings) and it probably was too short for her. But it was good for Dino.

We put a second fence up so it was pole > stride > fence > stride > fence > pole. I went down this once and it was good. She insisted the striding was too short and not ‘correct show jumping distance’ … and set the fences wider apart … and I jumped it again :withstupid: …. and he did one canter stride a really funny half panicked stride and I SMACKED him in the mouth. He totally took me by surprise and I properly socked him 😥

After that I said ok let me try a single crosspole and I couldn’t get him over it, not set tiny tiny tiny with me riding him 😥 I hoped off and got him to jump it in hand, albeit reluctantly, and we left it at that. Soooo cross with myself for not trusting my own judgement.

*sigh* The amazing Claire also feels bad for not doing something, although it was my call and not hers. She’s going to take us to the gallops on Saturday so he can do something fun and change the scenery a bit and then I spoke to Claudia, we have a lesson on Monday anyway so it’s back to pole work and tiny cross poles to rebuild his confidence.

All fixable I’m sure. But I hate it when you do something like that – I knew it wasn’t going to work so WHY did I let the bolshy teenager have her way? It’s me that organised bloody jumping this evening so I feel a little bit peeved that she didn’t feel like maybe she should work round me, but ultimately it’s on my head.

Poor baby. He was pretty grumpy until I got the herb bucket out. That cheered him up a bit :wub: