Recent content by Ambers Echo

A quick way to get the shift is to focus on the experience you want to be having not the experience you are worried about having. Eg driving Myka to our first offsite jumping lesson: mind kept going to ‘what if she’…. Perhaps I should….’ ‘We’re not ready…’ Not helpful. I said out loud: what...

People are totally delusional!!

With GAD (and lots of other forms of anxiety) it can be helpful to shift from a content focus to a process focus. Anxiety arises and people try and work out ‘what’s wrong’ so they can fix it. But the problem is the anxiety. The problem is not an ‘out there’ problem but an internal process. In...

Shout out to Myka today who was amazing out hacking even though she was faced with a LOT of quite scary stuff - 4 motorbikes, a refrigerated lorry, a fuel tanker, a flat bed truck with loads of stuff in and a Land Rover pulling a wood trailer!!! Very proud of her. Yard groom has started hacking...

Another Cally story that does also illustrate how impatient spome 'experts' are. I bought Cally on impulse when I was viewing another pony for my daughters' first pony. (Impulse horse buying - story of my life!) There was something about her courage and curiosity that I loved - this virtually...

Ooh that reminds me - many years ago I backed a fell pony who I had bought at 2 just off the fell. I first bridled her loose in a very large field. She came over and I played and with the bridle. Every so often she would wander away but curiosity always brought her back. It took a while but we...

Constructive advice is always welcome and yes that does make sense. I had a series of lessons with Brian at Talland last year and he kept saying "imagine you are drawing a bow back" which was very helpful. My hands are the bane of my ridden life! Especially the right one. Even when I am just...

I faced a similar dilemma. Used cheap DIY livery. It was easier when they were very small - more portable and biddable! But it stopped working as they got older and were clearly bored/cold/unhappy up the yard every day after school. At that point I gave it all up for a few years. Asking my...

I don’t know the person in the Fb link but Liberty is no more an expression of free will than any other trained behaviour. This article is excellent. And explains something I’ve often noticed but never understood - why horses at liberty often looked stressed! I use liberty to check in with...

That is what I am reassuring myself with! I believed Lottie was very happy to jump until she said no. Then she was retired from jumping. Long before a vet said she should or needed to be. But I also know that I want to ride. And so am aware that I am not impartial. But I really do try to ride...

Thank-you, I did!! x

Just to add to this - and I'm just musing on things now really - I know a rider who only rides if the horse comes over to her in the field. But equally she has trained the horse to come. So is the horse coming because it is happy to be ridden or because it has been trained to come. How far ahead...

Re the 'doing things they don't want to do'- it's pretty difficult to define 'want to'. No horse leg yields across a field and few jump for fun instead of going round obstacles given the choice. Some horses indicate their preference for staying in the field and eating grass than coming in for...

Well this is her canter from about 10 days ago. Just working on being able to get the transition reliably in different parts of the arena as at the moment I build up the trot till I feel her ready and then ask. Whereas I need to be able to say 'now' at any time and have a response. I am sort of...

Zero criticism from me! Lovely quiet hands, lovely still lower leg. Trot looks fab and forward and a very smooth transition to canter. No flapping about at all. Far better than my efforts! :D Maybe I'll brave showing you all a jump at home. Felt like a big milestone and Myka looks fine, but I...