ahh that's a lovely post. I know exactly what you mean about an older horse like that, Millie was so prone to injury in the last few years that I quickly learned to cherish every ride. I miss riding her so much, she was just my perfect horse.
She has taught me so much, including to make the most of everything. Roll on riding club on Wednesday!
Thank you! The last picture is one of the few ‘advanced’ (says hickstead, think they’d be at max BE novice) fences we did, but there were some huge corners and brushes that I would love to jump but realistically are a little too scary for paddy to be happy to do. I would really like to try though, I guess I’ll just have to see how he feels next time
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. Good news is that she still loves the jumping, but I definitely need to find a bit that gives us some breaks!
Feeling super jealous! My 'now' only horse is on box rest. I rode the farmers horse on a lovely long hack which was lovely but not quite the same as riding your own. He is a super chap though, 16.2 super fit hunting cob.
)
But as you say it's something that can be managed so hopefully you'll be able to get her feeling comfortable and back to having some fun asap.That’s really good. As I said in another post about competing on your own my ex racehorse has taken about six years to stand on the lorry on arrival. He’s pretty much a star in every other way though and now he stands like a pro.it's when you have a bad one, and no help on the ground, that you really appreciate what a good quality it is for a horse to have learned to stand quietly and just be chilled out. Kira was really tricky in the early days but now she is super easy.
Darcy isn't great at tying up at this stage (wouldn't really have been tied up at the trainer's yard) so even little things like getting tack out of the lorry etc has to be pre planned when they can't settle on the box. Let alone going to get a cuppa
he was chucking himself around a bit on Sunday which wasn't filling me with confidence that he would figure it out
but he really does cotton on quite fast, so long as you can get him in the right headspace to do learning 
he was very weary by the end of our lesson so i think it was the ideal time to let him just vegetate for a bit! I am sure we will be repeating the learning for a while but it's a good start. 
Ours put dents in the side of our lorry kicking it on arrival back at the yard and that was about 4 years out of racing! OH reinforced the lorry at that point. Yes we did the practice standing after lesson or competing and he cottoned on to that after a while but the standing on arrival took longer. Mine only travels in over reach boots so avoided the needing to tie up issue in the early days. As you say, it really is working out a plan of attack to have everything on hand whilst they learn to chill.he was chucking himself around a bit on Sunday which wasn't filling me with confidence that he would figure it out
I might try and get one of those idolo ties for outside the lorry because he has made a bit of a habit of breaking the string and going on a jolly, but I need to be able to tie up for changing boots etc.
