What a week. London hit about 34 degrees this week which is too hot for me or the pony! Half Spanish he may be but he was born in Kent and really doesn’t cope with temperature over about 25 degrees. Poor thing. He came out in hives!!!! They’ve gone now but it was a bit worrying in the middle of the week. I think it just a heat reaction and he wasn’t much bothered fortunately.

So we haven’t done much actual training this week. We did have a go at some Connection Training work though, targetting a cone and sending to it and coming away. He enjoys his clicker sessions. Here’s some rubbish video:

I did also get the SLR out again and take some summer photos. He really is my favourite of all his colours at the moment. He’s mostly a sort of deep mahogany to look at but in bright sunlight he goes quite orange!

Yesterday it was cool enough to get the saddle out and have our third ride since April! He was really good. It’s still pretty warm but we got some reasonable transitions and a few steps of both shoulder-in and haunches-in on both reins. I feel like we’re getting back to things. Need to arrange to do some hacking though!

Man is it hot here. We’ve been around 30 degrees all weekend and it’s waaaaaaaay too hot for everyone. On Saturday in the middle of said heat wave the saddler came out! Poor Dino. Not been ridden since April and then I go and get on him in the middle of the hottest day of the year so far. He was not particularly impressed.

Emma had a super busy day and it was boiling by the time she got to us but she was happy and chirpy as usual!

Good job we saw her too: she had to bring the saddle in by an inch! We have been doing some work on being relaxed about the saddle and I think he’s getting better so this is all good. We did just a few mins walk/trot on Saturday and about 20 mins in total walk/trot on Sunday. He’s not as bad as I thought and Emma thinks he’s carrying himself a bit better. Hopefully we’ll be back to fitness in a few weeks!

We have also almost eliminated the nipping in ST work. This is a BIG step forwards and I’m super happy! I’ve been using clicker to reinforce wanted behaviour and it seems to be paying off. Need to do some 2mm stuff on HI/SI but the pushing is getting lessened I think so I’m feeling much happier about it.

After seven weeks of Strangles hell we’re finally back out on grass. Safe to say someone was pretty happy about this!

From Saturday he was out overnight for the first time and we’re settling into the summer routine. So that’s stage one complete. Stage two is groundwork/lunging/long reining and generally getting a bit loosened up and stage three will be getting back in the saddle. As his shape has changed a bit I’ve asked the saddler to come out on the 17th and check it before I ride so that gives me two weeks to get him moving a bit. I’m also doing some clicker work to try and get rid of his leg waving and make him happier about being groomed and saddled.

So this week then I shall be doing some lunging/long reining. Mostly in walk with a few bits of trot but focussing on keeping him calm and correct. We shall see how it goes…