No weekend thread weekend thread

Cloball

Cloball

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I take it no one has plans 😅 Neither do I really but I had a lovely little school today with the sun on the mountains. Practising our walk to canter which wasn't as good as last weekend but I played around at getting the rest of our transitions much sharper with much subtler aid which she totally smashed 😁 halt to trot and reinback are much improved. We worked so hard last year to get her much more settled in the school that we lot of a bit of the forward which was fine because we have definitely gained in strength and quality. Probably do a shorter (hungover ) stretchy session tomorrow and hack Monday and Friday. Can't believe how dark it is already!
 
My plans were on Wednesday this week so right between the weekend threads. I wasn't feeling too well so asked for a groundwork lesson instead of a hack. I got to do a bit of lunging, a bit of rein back and turn on forehand, and a bit of 'free range' with the horse I usually ride in my lessons. And practiced trotting up. He is a huge ID but such a gentle boy. I was in heaven. Just pure horsey joy! 😊

ETA free range was him standing there watching with interest but choosing not to follow me around the arena loose. Keeping on eye on my instructor who has the polos! 😂
 
I went down the road for dressage today. It's a venue where I regularly do clinics which seem to involve me gripping the neck strap and questioning my life choices! Very spooky....

For once I went with a plan. Forget "dressage" and just concentrate on getting him forward with his neck out so he can't get it tucked in and explode. Warmed up beautifully and although eyes were on stalks in the indoor the test was calm and accurate. Outline went to pot but I wasn't asking for it - just straight, steady and forward.

66% and a frilly so happy with that. Judge said he was a super chap. He then proceeded to kick off on the lorry as the stunning Highland stallion offloaded next door so I was feeling less "super chap" and more "hooligan" by the time we left 🙄

There's arena eventing at the same place tomorrow and I seem to have signed up. Might regret that in the morning!
 
Had a lovely hack the other day, punctuated by a helicopter flying rather close.

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7434604981233339680

Thursday we had a little school. He used to lose balance then be a bit spooky if you ride on a long rein but he seems to be maturing beautifully. Even did rein back on a long rein...

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7434583899377831201

Then today he had an indoor XC lesson...

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7435328411993722144

BH has been a busy boy. he seems to be maturing nicely, and I think teaching my boyfriend, who is a complete novice, is helping him to understand to help his rider.
 
Sammy and I headed to my trainer's for an overnight. With our Medium Areas qual in the bag I'm now focusing on me - learning to sit better to his trot so I can influence more (and ideally learn to sit to it well enough for medium and extended so we can go Adv Medium next year!). He has completely different paces to the Spanish horses I'm used to, and tends to drop behind the leg, so it easily feels very messy. My trainer enjoyed nagging me about my position 😝 and it felt far better after lesson 2.

We also kept on the changes work, Sammy has a fab change but you have to get all the prep and timing right or he's late behind. I'm grateful to have such a demanding schoolmaster to learn on, as my trainer said - if I can learn to do consistent clean changes on him, I'll hopefully be able to do them on anything!

I'm now away with work for a week so no pony time :(
 
Red-1 said:
Had a lovely hack the other day, punctuated by a helicopter flying rather close.

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7434604981233339680

Thursday we had a little school. He used to lose balance then be a bit spooky if you ride on a long rein but he seems to be maturing beautifully. Even did rein back on a long rein...

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7434583899377831201

Then today he had an indoor XC lesson...

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7435328411993722144

BH has been a busy boy. he seems to be maturing nicely, and I think teaching my boyfriend, who is a complete novice, is helping him to understand to help his rider.
Click to expand...

BH is really coming along nicely. He just seems like such a good all around horse that you can just enjoy. Rigsby too, of course :)
 
CanteringCarrot said:
BH is really coming along nicely. He just seems like such a good all around horse that you can just enjoy. Rigsby too, of course :)
Click to expand...
Thank you. I always feel a fraud commenting on here, in competing and training. It has been many years since I did any meaningful competition! But, we do train, even if it is just so BH and Rigs can be nice horses.

Yes, I am pleased with BH. He is 7 now and hasn't done much because of the various traumas that have befallen me, but even so, he is such a nice horse. I love that you can not ride for weeks, then saddle up and go for a nice hack. I love that both boys are letting my boyfriend learn to ride on them. I love that they have both been so gentle with him, yet step it up a bit when I ride. On that longer hack, BH was fair pulling on in canter at some parts, in a nice keen way, not rude or naughty.

It was quite a change not to have either horse stolen by boyfriend this week. I even got Rigs out to the pub myself!
 
I’m not competing atm so don’t have much to say! We had a jump lesson and he was super - for various reasons haven’t left the ground in ages which sucks as we both love it.

IMG_4936.jpeg

And we’ve been doing lots of hacking and exploring.

IMG_4939.jpeg
IMG_4940.jpeg

He was a total nut job yesterday but I managed to have a good time in spite of limited contact with the saddle 🙈
 
I had to laugh yesterday. I knew the arena eventing was a national pony show qualifier but they were open for all entries so given its down the road I thought it would be a good training exercise.

I hadn't really appreciated that I would be the only middle aged lady competing against lots of little girls!! I swear the 4 who jumped in front of me had a cumulative age less than mine :rolleyes:

Also more than a little intimidated by the very large and very flash lorry that offloaded some incredibly smart ponies in HOYS championship rugs that didn't look like they had been near anything like mud. I did groom BabyCob before we turned up but white feather in a field kept horse is always going to be shades of brown at this time of year and he's overdue a clip so we definitely were more bog pony vibes than HOYS champion :p

Very proud of how he held it together in the warm up with lots of small ponies galloping around. He was fascinated by the shetland - who was awesome - and nearly fell over his own feet looking at him. A few stops, a few leaps, wouldn't go through the water (I need to work on that) and I went round the downhill jump because we haven't practised that and its all about confidence at the moment. There was a photographer but the best jump of him she has managed to miss the top of my head so I don't think I'm forking out £15 for that!

I think they are going to run a few more over the winter so next time I might pop my hair in pigtails and see if I can find some filler for the wrinkles........ (or try and persuade other oldies to come along!)
 
Successful outing for us.

Jack loaded like a dream and travelled really well, and did a lovely test for 69.74% and 2nd in p2.

Dad did his first ever competitive tests. He was 2nd in intro B and then 3rd in P2 with Raz so that’s both horses qualified for the finals next month.

No pics unfortunately as they both wanted their tests shouted.

Same again next weekend and I’m going to attempt N24 as the physio gave me the okay to ride as normal today 🥳
 
We had our last dressage club rally of the year. I had a good lesson working on half pass and changes a bit more. Half pass is coming along nicely and the changes will get there. Need to keep working on the canter quality but we do have a clean change.

Sunday I had every intention of working more on what we did at the rally but I’ve been unwell and I didn’t have any energy so I ended up trying to work on things but cutting it short.

Yesterday coolie had dental surgery and today I’ve been for a lively hack with Henry!IMG_4515.jpeg
 
I've had a wonderful weekend away at a Sean Coleman liberty clinic with Amber. It's something I know nothing about, but my aim is to get her a bit more interested in working with me. She does everything asked but only at about 50%of her capability, 50% is good enough to place well in competition. But it means I work damn hard for it, and if she's too zoned out when I ask for a transition or go up to an obstacle, I get an overreaction, and then we lose a lot of marks. But it's mainly because I'm well aware she's not fully with me, and it makes me sad as I want her to enjoy being with me. I'm happy to change what we're doing to suit her, but we do a wide range of things, and this zoning out is constant.
At liberty, if they're zoned out, you have no chance, so the theory is that if we can crack this, our partnership will improve.
She proved the above is true and also that, perhaps because she's had a lot of professional training, she's not the most forgiving/generous of humans making mistakes. She makes me work really hard for everything I get, but she is very smart, smarter than me :D
We went from her just saying see ya later and doing laps and acrobatics around the arena, including losing a shoe and being very dramatic on the first day, to her happily going out on a circle and coming back when called and hooking onto me and following on my shoulder in both walk and trot by the last day. It was challenging, and I do not understand it enough to explain it yet, but on the last day of work, she had a soft expression, and whilst her ears weren't forward, they also weren't pinned back and she was actively with me .
It's not been a lightbulb moment — this is life-changing and the new thing for me clinic—but it has confirmed a lot of my suspicions. Although we both found it difficult, I think it's something we need to put effort into, and we'll gain a lot from it in the future.
 
@Alibear that sounds really interesting, perhaps particularly as I feel/joke a lot that my boy gives me about 40% effort in everything we do.

This weekend we finally rode through and videoed our freestyle so hopefully will have music back soon!
And REALLY exciting, today we did our first, clean, flying change! It's only our 2nd session trying changes and it is really the blind leading the blind.
After discussion with trainer, we're cracking on with teaching changes in the hope it might fire him up a bit- today we definitely had more energy and impetus than usual, with a lot less effort from me. Hoorah!
 
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