Second Weekend of Jan Plans

He is so lovely! Really looking forward to seeing more BH updates this year. :)
He is just a cracker isn't he! can't wait to see where you guys are at a year from now.
Thank you, he is certainly more than I could have hoped for. However, I don't have even a fifth as much ambition as I did. We will probably have another year of doing very little!

That said, I think he is still very immature so another year of playing around is probably to the good. I have managed to book a lesson with Joe Midgely, so that will be interesting.
 
First weekend of mucking out completed! (She's on part livery) YO has been fab with all my queries and wobbles. Fitted her new (second hand) bridle today as needed some more holes and she was thoroughly unimpressed with it yesterday but I'm quite pleased she expressed her opinion without doing anything drastic ?. Was sent off for a walk today before I built it up too much and she marched off on a mission without a bother at all ? no pics as I was being sensible with gloves and a stick so I had my hands full and it is pouring with rain.
 
First weekend of mucking out completed! (She's on part livery) YO has been fab with all my queries and wobbles. Fitted her new (second hand) bridle today as needed some more holes and she was thoroughly unimpressed with it yesterday but I'm quite pleased she expressed her opinion without doing anything drastic ?. Was sent off for a walk today before I built it up too much and she marched off on a mission without a bother at all ? no pics as I was being sensible with gloves and a stick so I had my hands full and it is pouring with rain.
You need a hat cam! We need to join your adventure!
 
Rode my boy in the school on what was supposed to be a dry and sunny morning.

We managed 15 minutes in the howling wind and sideways rain before we'd had enough.

The boy was so good though. He's 7 this year and he finally seems to be growing up.

First hack of the year tomorrow though, after which I may feel differently! ?
 
I have a busy few weeks coming up, starting with a lesson away from home tomorrow afternoon.

Cas feels fab at the moment. He loves polework and jumping so we’ve been having a bit of fun with that as well as trying out some tempis - 3’s and 4’s are almost there and I had a bash at some 2’s today just to see what happened (I got 3 before forgetting how to count ?).

He’s just the coolest… ?
 
We had the hunt round last night. Luckily I'd got them in for tea but my young cob came out of his box this morning with all 4 legs off the ground. Proceeded to wind the mares up and had them all galloping through the swamp before I grabbed him. Hosed the worst of the mud off, decided hacking wasn't wise and went to school in the field. Zero manners. Every time a horse went past on the road he had a tantrum and took 20 minutes to get any resemblance of a normal walk.

The state of my field ?
 
Ouch sheep sorry to read that.

We had a really good trip out sj today. Bertie was brilliant. Lots of positives - he behaved beautifully the whole time, I wasn’t really nervous (seem to have hit a handy way of talking myself out of nerves, hope it lasts!), I remembered the course - which was a bit twisty and didn’t flow very well (inc one that threw Bertie as he wasn’t expecting to jump on a slightly odd curved line and nearly missed it) - we went clear and came 6th. But urgh my riding is shocking. ? Hopefully having more outings will help sort that out as I don’t do it in lessons (I don’t think) but something about the red mist of a competition and it all goes out the window!
 

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I actually have a contribution for once! Went for a TREC lesson today and the fuzzball managed not to be a compete tool and once he'd recovered from his eyes being on stalks / thoroughly investigated whether the horse in the mirror was an alien or in fact just his reflection actually calmed down and did some reasonable work. Still a lot of things to work on but that's going to be the case for a while really. Interesting that there's things the orange one found very easy that he struggles with right now & vice versa. The welsh creature was something of an S bend specialist & I believe could have done it in his sleep, ditto neck reining whereas fuzzball is still a bit puzzled by the S bend as a concept & also one handed riding. He is however a lot happier with the low branches which his predecessor always treated with a healthy level of mistrust.

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Successfully dodged the rain!

Trip out to a local but new venue for us (only recently started doing classes above Ele). He was hot as sin to get on, not had to deal with that side of him for a while! Loads to look at and loads of noises - I accepted in my head it may not go to plan but that the exposure would do him good.

So beyond the farm machinery, cars/lorries/horses moving, PC SJ and arena XC, lorries coming and going, horses on livery being moved about (out of sight but above head level) he came down from near boiling point and produced some stellar work. Felt like a big step forwards in mental maturity from him as this time last year I wouldn’t have been able to rescue the situation

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I was truly proud of both tests, just some tiny bobbles but nothing major. 65%+ in each which wasn’t what I was expecting but couldn’t be happier with how he went.

Quick hack on Sunday - successfully rain dodged - and day off today (unfortunately in as the hunt are in our village but he won’t care about one day!).

Helped a friend at vale high profile Fri and Sat too and got to handle some stunning superstars, I was a little bit fangirled!
 
I rode through my Elementary and Medium this weekend, in preparation for show next weekend- after 3days off and with a cold wind howling up his bum, he was v.v.v.v.hot both days, unusual as he's usually horizontal!

Super jump lesson today, pushed right out of my comfort zone with a much more forward canter than I would choose and much bigger and squarer fences.
Dima was a star and jumped brilliantly, I need much more practice to be relaxed when winging down to big fences with a loose rein!
 
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