Very brief update: Dino is supposed to have his teeth rasped every 6 months (or at least checked in case they need doing) and has been chewing a bit thoughtfully and randomly spitting food out recently so I got the vet out this morning to give him a check. He thinks the teeth are fine, no hooks or sharp bits, had a good feel round, and he thinks the jaw looks amazing! :db: Says he’s very surprised but extremely pleased we’ve had such a good outcome for Dino after all the troubles. :wub: :wub:

Whilst we were waiting for Goncalo I was mooching about and I noticed we have swallows nesting in Dino’s box!!! They are so lovely 😀

Oops! Long time no update! I’ve been super busy at work and had a couple of weekends away from London, back now though so I’ll be back to more regular updates.

Dino is doing great at the moment! He’s been going really well in the school, back to moving more forward although we’re only cantering when out and not in the school yet. Not been working too much in the school, but really happy with how he is right now. We’ve been doing a fair bit of hacking – with some gentle cantering up the disused railway track and up the bridlepath a bit. He feels fine, but David will be out to see him in a couple of weeks and hopefully he’ll get a clean bill of health :db:

It was my birthday on Friday so today my friends Claire & Pamela took me out to the Water Meadows at Bricket Wood and we had a super hack! :db: We were out for two hours and Dino was shattered when he got back in, but we got to play in some water for the first time :wub: I wasn’t at all sure he’d go in, and although he was a super brave lead pony for most of the hack he wouldn’t walk into the water until someone else had, but he followed Tally well enough. I didn’t get the cutest bit on video where he was having a good splash with his front legs but I did get some footage: https://www.flickr.com/photos/silkyraven/18013046706/

Was a lovely day for a hack – excuse Dino’s ears he wasn’t as annoyed as it appears, he heard the camera noise the phone was making!!

In non-horsey related news my excuses for not updating include this:

this:

and this:

Ok, I’ll stop now. No more trips planned for a while :laugh:

Not updated in a week! 😮 It’s ‘cos I was on holiday in Whitby with a bunch of Goths for the weekend :db:

Good Dino news today! David the osteo was back out today. I have felt he’s been improving. He’s been quite forward going and swinging through really nicely when out hacking, although he remains sluggish in the school. David agrees that he is on the road to recovery! :db: He’s still got some stiffness in the left lumbar spine but it’s better than it was three weeks ago.

Some short clips of canter ridden today, to provide a counterpoint to SueC’s excellent videos. Here’s some terrible riding and an unbalanced pony: (David asked to see right canter as I took some loose video on Thursday and silly pony would only canter left when on a right circle :cc_confused: Left being the bad side. :cc_confused:)

Left canter: https://flic.kr/p/soj14C
Right canter: https://flic.kr/p/s92ZaU

I am really quite unhappy with my riding at the moment. I felt like it was improving but I’m back to gripping my heels up, and my hips are super stiff so that’s quite disappointing really. But the pony is getting better and seems to put up with my terrible riding so that’s the important thing I guess!

In better news I got some plaiting practice in today whilst I was waiting for David:

That’s improving at least!