tonitot
Well-Known Member
Sorry, I dont think I spelt that right at all!! It was actually Saturday but I've only just gotten time to do this! This is very long and there's a picture overload, so I wont be offended if you give up halfway through 
Last year, about the beginning of March I was asked if I wanted one of the fillys from work, for free. The filly in question was Ethel, a bay TB rising 3yo who had been broken and was in training to be a racehorse, but due to circumstances with her owners she was retired early, unraced and unnamed. I said no ... the reason being that just before I was asked if I wanted her, this filly had just tried to boot me out of her stable when I went in to feed her, plus my dream horse was a nice big grey or coloured, very hairy, cobby gelding, not some small boring bay, scrawny, stick-like filly. Then I thought, might as well have her and then sell her on, make a bit of money to put towards the dream horse, and so I said yes and on the 12th of March 2010 Ethel moved house. One year on and she's still with me
On the first night she was a bag of nerves, was terrified of her 12hh pony neighbour, wouldn't let me touch her face and was very jumpy. I thought she was going to take forever to calm down, but the next morning she was like this ...
... and she let me go and sit with her and give her a cuddle, then I had a feeling she wouldn't be going anywhere. She was turned out with her new friends and settled straight away ...
A few days later I free schooled her for the first time ...
April, we did our first ever little jumps, took a while for her to get the idea but we got there in the end!
May, she had to go to horsepital with a small puncture wound on her hock which had joint fluid coming out of it. 3 days at vets, one week box rest and a lovley big bandage later she was allowed back out to play, but acted as if she had been turned out everyday! (No pics for this though :/ )
June I started riding her, and one day we did some little jumps under saddle
July we went to our first party, didn't do particuarly well (our best was a 4th) but she was so laid back and well behaved that I didn't care
From July till a week ago, she did absolutley nothing. Gave her a long break to feed her up, let her grow and be a baby as she was looking like this ...
After some very good advice on here, she now looks like this ...
I've started riding her again and she's coming along nicely A friend gave me a lesson on Saturday and took some pictures. We started of the lesson very giraffe like but ended like this!
I know its not an outline, but she brought her head down for a few strides of canter for the first time ever! Plus she looks massive in this picture, I', 5'7 and she's 15.2 (was a full up 15hh when I got her so break has done her good)
Roll on 2011!!! I plan to spend this year working hard on her schooling, getting her to relax more and gradually muslce up and start coming into an outline. I'd also like to do more jumping, get out to do some small clear rounds and a tiny bit of XC, she can then have a few months off next winter to grow up a bit more and then proper work begins next year
Thanks for reading!!!
Last year, about the beginning of March I was asked if I wanted one of the fillys from work, for free. The filly in question was Ethel, a bay TB rising 3yo who had been broken and was in training to be a racehorse, but due to circumstances with her owners she was retired early, unraced and unnamed. I said no ... the reason being that just before I was asked if I wanted her, this filly had just tried to boot me out of her stable when I went in to feed her, plus my dream horse was a nice big grey or coloured, very hairy, cobby gelding, not some small boring bay, scrawny, stick-like filly. Then I thought, might as well have her and then sell her on, make a bit of money to put towards the dream horse, and so I said yes and on the 12th of March 2010 Ethel moved house. One year on and she's still with me
On the first night she was a bag of nerves, was terrified of her 12hh pony neighbour, wouldn't let me touch her face and was very jumpy. I thought she was going to take forever to calm down, but the next morning she was like this ...
... and she let me go and sit with her and give her a cuddle, then I had a feeling she wouldn't be going anywhere. She was turned out with her new friends and settled straight away ...
A few days later I free schooled her for the first time ...
April, we did our first ever little jumps, took a while for her to get the idea but we got there in the end!
May, she had to go to horsepital with a small puncture wound on her hock which had joint fluid coming out of it. 3 days at vets, one week box rest and a lovley big bandage later she was allowed back out to play, but acted as if she had been turned out everyday! (No pics for this though :/ )
June I started riding her, and one day we did some little jumps under saddle
July we went to our first party, didn't do particuarly well (our best was a 4th) but she was so laid back and well behaved that I didn't care
From July till a week ago, she did absolutley nothing. Gave her a long break to feed her up, let her grow and be a baby as she was looking like this ...
After some very good advice on here, she now looks like this ...
I've started riding her again and she's coming along nicely
A friend gave me a lesson on Saturday and took some pictures. We started of the lesson very giraffe like but ended like this!
I know its not an outline, but she brought her head down for a few strides of canter for the first time ever! Plus she looks massive in this picture, I', 5'7 and she's 15.2 (was a full up 15hh when I got her so break has done her good)
Roll on 2011!!! I plan to spend this year working hard on her schooling, getting her to relax more and gradually muslce up and start coming into an outline. I'd also like to do more jumping, get out to do some small clear rounds and a tiny bit of XC, she can then have a few months off next winter to grow up a bit more and then proper work begins next year
Thanks for reading!!!
