clairebearnz
Well-Known Member
My Christmas present to myself is turning out to be a real stunner. He lost a lot of weight through February due to a lack of grass but the torrential rain (and corresponding flooding in the city, there's a great shot of me shovelling silt with the Student Army on the national news) and some sunshine meant he has piled weight on. I have been trying to crack on with his schooling, but with miles of empty roads and wide verges around, I tend to hack more than school.
However, my friend was down from the North Island, so I took Fready across to the neighbour's arena to pop him over some jumps before we went for a hack. Unfortunately, I seem to have developed a horrible tendency to fling myself up Fready's neck over fences which I definitely do not do with Tally, so I plan to fix that asap.
On the flat, he's really coming on. He only lasts for about 20 minutes doing flatwork before he gets antsy so I tend to keep the sessions short. We've started some baby leg yielding to try and convince him that my left leg is worth listening to plus playing around with changes of pace within a gait. He thinks medium canter is a lot of fun but lengthening in trot tends to involve him throwing his legs in all directions. He does try awfully hard to do what I'm asking though. He does tend to poke his nose out but at this stage, I'm not willing to sacrifice any of the beautiful forward trot we have for a 'proper' headset.
His canter is really beautiful to ride.
God only knows what I am doing!
My favourite, mainly because of the expression on his face.
And the little monster with my friend on (she's about 5'9" and he's just on 14.3hh
). He currently hates me as he has to wear a muzzle for 12h a day now that there's grass coming through and he'll either colic or get laminitis if he's allowed too much. He does get 12h in a pen with hay but he *really* hates his muzzle. Aside from that, he's in fine form!
However, my friend was down from the North Island, so I took Fready across to the neighbour's arena to pop him over some jumps before we went for a hack. Unfortunately, I seem to have developed a horrible tendency to fling myself up Fready's neck over fences which I definitely do not do with Tally, so I plan to fix that asap.
On the flat, he's really coming on. He only lasts for about 20 minutes doing flatwork before he gets antsy so I tend to keep the sessions short. We've started some baby leg yielding to try and convince him that my left leg is worth listening to plus playing around with changes of pace within a gait. He thinks medium canter is a lot of fun but lengthening in trot tends to involve him throwing his legs in all directions. He does try awfully hard to do what I'm asking though. He does tend to poke his nose out but at this stage, I'm not willing to sacrifice any of the beautiful forward trot we have for a 'proper' headset.
His canter is really beautiful to ride.
God only knows what I am doing!
My favourite, mainly because of the expression on his face.
And the little monster with my friend on (she's about 5'9" and he's just on 14.3hh
). He currently hates me as he has to wear a muzzle for 12h a day now that there's grass coming through and he'll either colic or get laminitis if he's allowed too much. He does get 12h in a pen with hay but he *really* hates his muzzle. Aside from that, he's in fine form!
