Another week gone by….

Today we went up the gallops again! It’s such fun :yahoo: He was dripping after cantering/galloping nearly the full mile that the track is. Might need to bring my clipping plans forward if it stays this warm!

After actual galloping we went on a bit of a hack through the woods to cool off – we led for a bit:

It was a good morning. Here he is looking pretty waiting to load:

He was pretty good about the trailer even though he had to travel on the left side and load second for the first time ever!! Loading at home he got all ‘but I go this side???’ and I was like, no there’s another pony already in there. You have your face in his bum. Come here when there’s room. And he was all. Er….I go this side. :rolleyes: No pony, you go where there isn’t a pony already loaded. Eventually he went oh maybe I shall put myself on the left where theres lots of room! Aren’t I clever? :wall:

It’s been such a busy week with all the car nonsense that I haven’t got anywhere with any straigthness training. Oops. Next week will be better!!!

Oh! Also at the gallops today were two proper racehorses!!! They are racing tomorrow apparently and came up to do two sets of the mile long track just to warm up for it. They make galloping look so effortless. They can past us on the track when we were walking about 10 metres away from it, but in the same direction and our horses were all entranced by them.

We did get to dressage on Saturday in the end, and didn’t actually come last (or wouldn’t have done had we been competing – we were just riding HC) but only 55% (my fault. I forgot the second ‘walk for a horses length’ bit but given the morning I’d had I’ll not worry about it!!!!)

Video will be here when it’s processed:

Well. What an amazing horse Dino has been this week!! :wub:

I’ve been having some issues with him in the school. He’s been starting out ok in a session and then sort of slowing down and grinding to a halt as we start to do actual work and I’ve not wanted to push him too hard as I’ve been feeling like maybe he’s not fit enough, or maybe his hip is still sore or or or ….you know how it is. So I think I’ve basically taught him to back off and I’ll shut up and go away. Oops. :doh:

So. Tapping him with a whip does no good, nor does shouting/geeing him on with your voice. He just ignores it. Turns out finding a *really* flexible schooling whip that makes a really good noise when swished about over his ears (yes, sorry, this probably isn’t very EE) or behind the saddle or over his bum is pretty effective at getting him moving! :db: No need to hit him or kick him, just swishing a very noisy whip about or hitting the fence with it each time he backs off has worked a treat. In my lesson on Monday we cantered an entire lap of the school on each rein with a simple change of lead through 5 strides of trot in the middle! 😮 And then spent the rest of the session with the reins knotted and me working on my upper body doing trot and canter transitions all round the outside. He was forward and responsive and amazing….and suspiciously not puffing or even remotely sweating by the end of the session. Not actually unfit then…!!

He was a bit reluctant at first but once we’d really got going he went from quite a reluctant, ears back, oh ok we can canter if we *must*, to ears forward, off the leg feeling like he was actually enjoying it! :db:

Today we went to Arrandene with Claire & Tally as we often do on a Wednesday morning. You can canter/gallop up one of the fields, but it’s not a long stretch. Usually we end up with Tally in front as Dino has been preferring to mooch along behind. On the second go up the centre today I put Dino in front. We had a bit of a strop about this, but after waving the stick around for a bit he went OH OK I’LL GO THEN and marched off down the hill, ears back, presumably muttering to himself under his breath. Usually putting him in front for a canter means we have a lovely sedate affair…..today he actually galloped. In front. In the lead. Without much encouragement! :yahoo: And he enjoyed it! After that he was all ears forward ‘where next then?’. We went round again and had a very forward canter but that was quite a lot of work for both of them so they were legitimately puffing and tiring as we got to the top. So happy! He then lead, in a forward marching trot/walk all the way home!

Very happy with him! Feel like this was probably my own doing and bit annoyed with myself that I’ve had to get a bit more firm with him than I would like to untrain what I trained him to do but I think we was enjoying things much more once he got moving, both in the school and out of it. Hopefully this will continue into the weekend as we are off to do some dressage again on Saturday – not actually competing as we didn’t qualify but we’re doing an intro class HC. Can’t going making lots of noise with whips when other people are warming up and I’m not sure the judge would appreciate it but hopefully he’ll carry a bit more forward-thinking-ness with him after this week!

Oh: we got some new hoof boots too and they are amazing!! Cavallo Trek. Stayed on a treat today, even galloping up the hill! So relieved to have that issues sorted too 🙂

I may be getting carried away…. But I’ve just booked us on a show jumping clinic & compete in November :oo

Same deal as the dressage one. 50-60 cm, three people er class. 45 min clinic then a competition between the three of us. He’s never seen proper coloured poles or fillers so I’ve been looking for an opportunity to have a go with some before going to an actual show. 7th November. Maybe I should buy a body protector….!

Well wasn’t that a dreary bank holiday!

We made the best of it; adjusted our planned morning hack for an afternoon one and missed the rain! :laugh: So, loaded up the ponies and took them out to the Water Meadows in Brickett Wood. Really lovely hacking, although quite gravelly ground and some wading through actually quite deep rivers 😮 Last time we went the rivers weren’t too bad – probably knee height for him? Yesterday the 13.2 pony we had with us was submerged up to his belly!!! 😮 Bless them all – four ponies, straight into the water, drinking, splashing and enjoying it and no fuss to get any of them across. We met a handful of other riders doing some water training as their horses wouldn’t go in at all which was a good reminder to us of how good our horses are :db:

We were out for 2 hours. I was terrified I was going to lose a hoof boot or two in the water but we didn’t *phew* I think he had a good time and it starts to get him a bit fitter. He was also super clever when we loaded to come home as he had to load second which looks a bit more scary than he’s used to but he was fine – needed a bit of encouragement where he will now walk onto a fully light opened out trailer without hesitation – but he went on, very little fuss :wub:

I wish we’d got some photos but four horses in water up to their elbows isn’t really conducive to pictures!!