Weekend (of the clocks changing 😭) plans?

Super pleased with new boy Winston

He's been with me for two weeks yesterday, and is growing in confidence. Today the yard were running a pole work clinic, so me and another livery who also has a new horse teamed up and opted for a quiet walk session.
In the end there were four of us in together, and the local shoot was going on in the next field. He was so good, working around the other horses, standing and watching whilst waiting for his go. Walked over and around the poles without a care in the world. And did some very simple lines of poles in trot.
Typical baby wobbliness, and drifting towards his friends, but really can't fault him.

Will do a better update on his thread in the tack room with pics once I get them through from fellow livery.
 
Ridden work currently off cards again for a variety of reasons.

To cheer self up have built a spooky obstacle course at yard for everyone to play with tomorrow involving swords, hook a duck, spooky pumpkin men & apple bobbing among other things.

It should be noted we are a yard with more or less zero children 😂
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millitiger said:
I've just checked again, sadly 5.10 from halt to halt so still need to shave a bit off 😥

Will need to write it out and see where I can shorten it down. Annoying as it all flows really well!
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I run into that problem too, that just the required movements take up almost all the time. It's not much of a freestyle if all you can do is the required movements strung together as efficiently as possible, is it?
 
spookypony said:
I run into that problem too, that just the required movements take up almost all the time. It's not much of a freestyle if all you can do is the required movements strung together as efficiently as possible, is it?
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Seems very short when a 'standard' Elem or Medium test is usually 5.30 mins?

I'm going to write it all up this afternoon, I think I can shave down some of the leg yields and medium canters etc.
It's seems difficult to fit in if you want to ride a symmetrical test but I suppose it will get easier as I get more used to it!
 
Ground was dry enough to ride at home so saved a few pennies on arena hire. Robin worked nicely for me. Listening to aids nicely. Lots of changes in direction with cones out to help. Poles out to walk over and a couple of nice circles of trot. He's starting to reach for the contact which is nice. You can't repeat any transitions or changes in direction as he tries to preempt you. Clever little pony. I need to make my riding/exercise area a bit bigger before I ask for canter even with a 12.2 pony.

Reggie did some practise standing at the mounting block and taking my weight in the stirrup and leaning over his back. I was on my own so didn't take things any further. He then had a play with the tricks he learnt from the NHT.

All finished off with a roast dinner with OH 😊
 
Good lesson on Thurs even though the hooligan disgraced himself by having 2 rodeo moments working in open order. Sometimes we do that without issue, but this time he boiled over quickly. Working on his own though showed some super trot work.

Weekend didn't go as planned. I picked up some sort of stomach bug so ended up cancelling the charity ride - definitely not up for 12k on a bouncy hooligan cob.
 
We came 6th out of 12 in the Novice Open in-hand, which isn't last so we have beaten our track record to date (with the one other show we have ever attended 😂)
More than anything I'm just happy to have another stress free, successful outing under his belt - he was a superstar.
Please excuse my hideous plaits, I couldn't thin his mane any more without literally cutting half of it off, and if it's any shorter then it sticks straight upright... plus I haven't had any hair for 10+ years!

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We won the novice class :D PB dressage of 16.5 (especially good given I drove first whereas my previous bests have tended to be when Rara has run before me). Some improvement to come in the walk section but that was always going to be our worst bit. Clear cones with a few time faults and good obstacles, number 2 went a bit wild and lost steering momentarily- he thought he could aim for the finish flags before we had finished 😂 (was happy to have Rara in my ear at that point and not have a small panic) but I was super chuffed how we did it the 2nd time (indoor events you do 2 obstacles twice, which is really good for learning) mostly in canter too. It does all happen quite quick driving obstacles, and then Rara goes and takes 8/9 seconds of your time - it is fun being on the back for that though.

V. pleased with both of us given my lack of practice and the steering being different on the new carriage too.

He was then 2nd with rara in the open so very happy with him, we have suggested he could try not to get too muddy in the 3 weeks until the next one but. . .

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This was our slightly failed left turn, it actually felt worse than in looks 😂
 
Going to try to figure out how to put links to videos up without them going on open FB (I don’t want the stream of “why aren’t you sat on it” questions until I know for definite if his feet are in fact unhappy again… they would appear ok today but obv this is just on sand… apparently pony thinks the idea he should be sedately walking in straight lines is silly). Anyhow until then have some screenshots.

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spookypony said:
What were the differences?
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There's not really any jumping, it's super slow (this was a drag hunt). Basically a trot/canter around a few fields and done after an hour! Kind of suits me just fine to be honest :D

The other hunt here in Colorado is faster with some jumps but they hunt over ground full of holes prarie dogs and it scares the living daylights out of me that a horse will put a foot through one at speed. The seasoned horses can recognize them and move/jump them (they are pretty visible as accompanied by a mound mostly). They hunt on the same land every week.
 
Also drag hunting! I waited for the good weather and went out with Staff College yesterday. A beautiful autumn day although it was hot 🥵. 3 nice lines in gorgeous English countryside, quite a bit of road work and the ground was a tiny bit soggy in parts but better than I thought it would be. I was glad he’s barefoot so I didn’t need to worry about lost shoes. He was fab. It’s such a joy to have a horse that’s good to take hunting. We both loved it!
 
Right, I shall attempt to condense my thoughts 😅
Firstly I missed the first 2 days so apologies as I know people on here know Joe well so I probably missed some fundamentals. The clinic was a nice.mixed of people who are very experienced and people/and horses who are very new and I got a lot out of the contrast and watching people get it wrong as Joe has almost imperceptible timing and feel.

I think the ground work was most useful for me at the moment as this is where I think the real gaps in mine and Ds education is. I worked out why D falls into me with her shoulder when I attempt to move her over.... I'm essentially pulling her onto me and then telling her off ... Confused pony. I liked the fact it was simple to understand and really ungimmicky in fact I didn't write any notes as it made sense. The introduction to timing and how that effects the response you get was really revelatory. There was a very similar pony to D (I can spot fell blood apparently) who picked it up very quickly which I found quite inspiring. I really should have asked more questions but they often don't come to me until later. I also missed the desensitisation to the flag so I might just try with the rope as she understands that cue already. I think I'll find the shoulder moving useful as I've been struggling to do that under saddle.

The clinic hosts were super friendly and the yard was lovely. They have regular clinics so my quandary is I'd really like to see what Joe makes of D and it might be the push we need to start doing things away from home as I think ive been babying her a little. But at the same time we've been doing ok and been really settled lately so I'm scared to upset the applecart so to speak and set us back by asking too much of her??? I also didn't ask much about when a horse maybe isn't physically ready to do things like holding the vertical flexion etc.

I did find by the end I was itching to grab a horse and have a go but I'm now hesitant about messing it up 😕
 
So for the Hallowe'en treasure hunt at the yard, I dressed up as a "giant horsefly". The Ballerina Mare, looking quite un-ballerina-like and a little too prepared for winter, was dressed as a "mare that's been attacked by a giant horsefly"! (She still has quite a few pink streaks, despite getting a bath yesterday.) We went out with a trotter mare that we often hack with ("mare that's run through really overpopulated giant-spider webs"), as team "Gruselige Arthropoden" (spooky arthropods), and somehow managed to place 3rd! Loads of creepy clues along the way, and a cave of horrors where one had to play tic-tac-toe with a witch (there were extra witches outside to hold the horses)! I think my mare thought it was the slowest and most chilled-out endurance ride ever, as we covered 9k in about 2h40. The Spooky Pony, however, thought that giant horseflies shouldn't be anywhere near him (the other geldings in his paddock agreed), so I had to go change before he would let me give him an apple!

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Phew, what a busy weekend! Two fab lessons on Friday / Saturday, Sammy felt very up for it and we did plenty of work on my position - half of Saturday's lesson was without stirrups. We kept the lessons short with the aim of not tiring him out for Sunday's comp (and failed miserably...more on that in a moment!).

Went out Saturday night for OH's birthday, drinks with friends and an absolutely delicious Sri Lankan curry in Oxford so I was very happy to have an extra hour of sleep ;)

I didn't feel nervous on Sunday for our first BD together (and my first affiliated dressage in over 3 years) but I kept doing silly things so I think my brain wasn't quite working properly! Sammy was incredibly behind-the-leg, his owner came to help and said he does tend to do that at comps but also the lessons leading up to the comp and travel probably took more out of him than we realised. He completely dropped me in the test, we got a 5 for the first centre line as he really didn't fancy moving off from the halt! I was so busy trying to keep him moving that I went wrong twice, I nearly retired but the lovely judge encouraged me to keep going as the nerves had dissipated by then. Canter half pass didn't really happen as I was working so hard to keep him in the canter (5 for both of those), but we did get plenty of 7s through the rest of the test. We ended up scraping an Area Festival qualifying score despite the -6 marks so not a complete waste of time and plenty of learnings for next time!!

Here are a few highlights:

Then I took Pocholo for a hack as his loaner is under the weather, it's always lovely to hop back on him 😍, it's like putting on a comfy old pair of slippers.
 
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We had gorgeous weather and two lovely hacks out with YO. Saturday, a walk around the village block, which was good as I hadn't ridden all week, then yesterday was just over two hours and 9.5 miles adventure where Amber got to demonstrate her gate opening skills, a glorious hack along the top of a slight hill which is the best views we can get locally. We had a herd of red deer run past, and the horses behaved perfectly. Amber got the warmest I've ever known her to so she had a good towel down and then enjoyed the day out without a rug so I bet she's filthy for her lessons later today :D
 
Fantastic weekend :)
Busy day with 3 turnouts between 2 of us at the local indoor region. All 3 phases are run separately so that’s 9 warm ups, 9 rounds..! And with only approx 25 people total.
Storms 3rd season now and he’s a real pro. The dressage is well within his ability so I could drive for accuracy. Cones I wobbled him to a couple and as he’s getting sharper he now over reacts to that. 4 fantastic obstacles with 1 ball down where he fell in toward the finish landed us a strong 2nd in the open pony. The winner was fault free so fully deserved it.
Then Maestros turn- he’s done dressage only at an outdoor event back in the summer but other than that it’s just been schooling and training, partly as I’ve been so busy and partly as there’s a lot to do before you take a young warmblood out to compete in company driven safely. All 3 phases he was fantastic. You don’t get to go round the arena before your dressage but he was still calm and accurate from the start. He pipped Storm by 0.75%! Cones he did really good listening as you don’t get long to set up for each one when you’re his size and stride length. Only 1 down and 2 seconds of time. Obstacles we took sensible baby routes but he didn’t question anything and cantered to the finish of 3 and 4 very proud of himself.
Super pleased with both of them. Storm was a star he tried so so hard, and Maestro was genuinely foot perfect. The warmup we had pony and mini pony pairs and pony and mini singles and none of them phased him. Even getting to the warmup most dressage horses would find an adventure, snaking between trailers, push chairs, mini ponies dogs and carriages but MP identifies as a hippy not a KWPN
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Dressage video:

 
Well done Ester and Rara - sounds like a great outing all round! I hate to imagine the amount of cleaning needed to get such lovely turnout too...
 
Storm is always an hour for his white bits…! He lives out but with his mane plaited. Thankfully we’re not in knee deep mud- yet.. we’re on clay. The rest is much easier!
 
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Oo I forgot to add I got my final evening session of the year despite work conspiring against me. Worked on our shoulder in and trot transitions. Had another school today as no one about to hack with and we got our third canter transition bob on without any run in 😇🏇😁 she's just been so good lately.
 
j1ffy said:
Well done Ester and Rara - sounds like a great outing all round! I hate to imagine the amount of cleaning needed to get such lovely turnout too...
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I think it was the first time we’ve turned up and didn’t have to do any onsite cleaning as we were both free to prep on Saturday afternoon 😅. I may have made some comments about the last time maestro might have had a tail brush being when I last did it in June though 😅 maybe he was just embracing his hippy
 
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