Weekend plans :D

Chippers1 said:
I'm trying a new technique because of how well he jumped on Sunday after a week off from jumping and haven't jumped this week in preparation for this coming Sunday - it's actually harder than I thought, obviously i'm starting to enjoy this jumping malarkey! We shall see if it has any effect - as I said it's only 70 so not exactly taxing for him.
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I've tried the opposite.

After our drama last Sat, I made sure to have a good confident jumping session (before work this morning :) ) to hopefuly take this forward into our lesson tomorrow.

Fingers crossed for both of us x

Fiona
 
We are venturing out to some BD tomorrow, one straight class and one music. Think will need to take a lot of clothes and rugs as winter has definitely kicked in since our last outing. Good luck to all out and about and look forward to Convention write ups.
 
Mixed bag today, fairly exhausting too so I will be looking forward to sitting down watching someone else do all the work this weekend :D

Salty went to arena hire first thing and was *such* a good girl, I can't actually remember the last time I took her anywhere, it will have been early summer as it's all been about Kira since then. I lunged her briefly first as she had 2 days off and not a lot of turnout and she was a complete pro, and then got on and had 35 mins of angelic behaviour, hurrah! She's starting to feel like a Proper Horse with our new regime of not letting her think for herself. I find it hard to get into the salty zone at first because I am definitely not a dictator with Kira, but its paying off.

Then this afternoon K was a complete megastar in AM85 under Lady I, really felt like she was confident and established in the work and I really enjoyed riding the test, first time I've ever enjoyed 85! 66 and a bit % for 2nd overall and first silver :D

Then into AM98 in the next door arena and the wheels fell off, well and truly. Kira denied ever having seen banners before, and there were *gasp* birds flapping in the hedge. So having stood on her back legs a few times, we did the test all squashed up against the B side of the arena *sigh* In between the "not performed" movements there must have been some pretty decent scores as we finished on nearly 62%. Not enough for her qualification unfortunately and I am *not* going chasing those last few points now, we will just stick to our music at regionals and have fun dancing instead ;)

I think it was meant to be this way, the outdoor warm up at summerhouse winters is hell on earth so we will be spared that :) and despite the disappointment I really was pleased with her way of going today, she has really come on recently and it's such a pleasure to ride a horse like her, even with her stumpy legs <3

obligatory Kira picture, orange goggle season now as I've clipped her face!

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Ambers Echo said:
Love her quizzical expression!! Very well done. What a year you have had xx
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it's been utterly bonkers and loads of fun, and then a day like today just sums her all up really. She knows the work, she's getting more and more established with it, but sometimes you just have to accept that she has her own mind and that's that! Nothing I can do about it, she is very much in touch with her wild pony heritage/feral brain. I have 2 or 3 really tricky rides each year and that was one of them o_O

Really must get Salts out and about more now though! I know that isn't going to be much fun for a while but I think she will be worth the effort.
 
We have a little yard dressage comp tomorrow. It’s the riding school clients, some pony clubbers, staff and liveries. I’m judging intro and prelim and then doing the novice on the big cob. Then I have a jump lesson with him on Sunday.

Big day on Sunday for the little cob! I’m getting back on board for the first time since his eye was removed. In fact, it’s the first time since the last week of September, since he was in horsepital for so long. I’m having a lesson so that I’m supervised because (a) I’m a little nervous, (b) I have no idea how he will be and (c) my brain will go out the window so I need someone giving me things to do.
 
Have a lovely weekend everyone. Unfortunately I’m still suffering with my kidney so this week has been a total write off and this weekend will be too. Millie has had to have an unscheduled week off, which may have to roll into two weeks, which is a bit of a pain.
Looking forward to reading all your reports.
 
I hopped on L the Haflinger for the first time today (she arrived on Monday but we have had a horrifically wet and windy week), just a small walk circle because it was wet, windy and her cob saddle hasn't arrive yet so am borrowing one from the TB. She's such a lovely girl, very green but a thinker. I think I'll have a lot of fun with her :)

Have a great weekend everyone! :)
 
Unfortunately I have to work today, I have a Monday lunchtime deadline I can't miss and I won't have enough time to do everything on Monday morning.

Wouldn't mind but I lost 1.5 days work this week sorting out somebody else's mess...
 
Get well soon Scats.
Sorry you have to work Wheels.
Need more pics Northern!

Izzy is doing her first day's work at the riding school. She has helped out for fun and for free before but this is the first 'real' day's work she is doing. Hope t goes well for her. That would sort weekend/holiday working out nicely!
 
I'm off to the Endurance AGM followed by the Gala dinner so no riding today. I will hopefully get out and about tomorrow, as following an unexpectedly good riding club session the other day irish is going to be doing a bit more! Hacking out and taking the pressure off for over a year has paid dividends, and she is strengthening up well, and did some nice work which really surprised me. The instructor knew her in her previous home, and was pleased at how she is coming on. Its strange as I have known the horse for over 4 years, but she has only been mine for 18 months, so whereas before I was always fire fighting to get her to behave, now I can push her to where I want her. One day I might even get on without a body protector!
 
The plan was to lunge Blue quickly this morning to check she was sound, then lob her out for the first time in two and a half weeks. However, then I discovered that her idea of lunging is broncing and farting in a high speed circle. (Watching an unfit heavyweight cob attempting airs above the ground is hilarious.) So instead she had a half-hour lesson in how to behave on a lunge line, and by the end of it she was working beautifully.

And then she got lobbed out. I was expecting a bit more excitement, but she plodded happily up to the field, plodded happily back because I'd forgotten to check if there'd been a field change, and then plodded happily out again. Her fieldmates were more excited to see her than she was to see them!

I can't get over how good this horse is!
 
Had a lovely day at the BD convention (even if my joints aren't thanking me right now for sitting still so long in a somewhat cramped environment). The demos were from Emile Faurie and Gareth Hughes, with Rachel Murray and Peter Storr offering observations throughout the demonstrations.

First up was a 5yo novice horse with Emile talking. The horse was the embodiment of the modern dressage warmblood - tall and athletic with big loose movement, excellent balance and the legs of a supermodel. He was also quite sharp and spooky, which led onto an interesting discussion about the best way to deal with a spooky horse - Emile mentioned a study that had been done in the US where they found a spooky horse that was 'allowed' to have a bit of a spook and a look at things improved and settled quicker than a horse that gets ridden strongly, being flexed away from what it was looking at and forced past. The rider of this horse was lovely and sympathetic, and it did actually settle pretty well, and remained very positive in its outlook throughout the session, which for me is the really important point. They looked at circles and transitions and were looking at lengthened strides towards the end. This horse had a fairly textbook medium trot, but Emile discussed how with many horses he finds you can't let the frame out as much as you might like when they are first learning, because they really need a little more support to start off with to give them confidence in the movement.

Next up was another 5yo as the 'elementary' horse. Very different to the first 5yo, with considerably plainer movement naturally. With this mare they were demonstrating the work they were doing on straightness (as she was described as distinctly one sided when they had first had her in), starting to develop more cadence in the trot and lateral work. There was use of shoulder fore, travers and counter canter for the straightness and then trot leg yield using the trot across diagonal to x then complete diagonal in leg yield. Emphasis was on rhythm and way of going, and using the horse's natural inclination to drift back to track to achieve the soft leg yield without risking overflexing them and shoving them sideways. Rachel Murray made interesting comments on the development of the stability lumber and quarter muscles that can come from lateral work done well, and she and Emile then discussed the difference between 'trotting sideways' and 'moving sideways in trot' (as Emile put it), where teaching your horse to take even, rhythmic trot strides with some sideways element to the steps is extremely beneficial biomechanically, but allowing your horse to collapse sideways in trot in an effort to get a large amount of crossing before they are physically able is extremely unhelpful biomechanically, and puts their tendons and ligaments under considerable strain. Rachel also discussed using exercises on the ground to develop a horse's eveness and stability muscles, such as tail pulls and walking over raised poles. Remarking that this allows muscle development without having to overcome the obstacle of the horse naturally overusing their stronger muscles to support the weight of a rider.

The next horse was again with Emile, and it was a beautiful chestnut out competing at medium. Frankly this horse was so utterly beautiful that I can't remember a lot of what Emile was saying about him. He was doing some beautiful, flowing lateral work where the emphasis was on him being in quite an open frame to encourage mobility behind the saddle. Peter Storr commented that the horse was beautiful and very technically correct, but for the higher marks (8,9 or 10) in a test he would need to be be a bit higher in his frame, but that he understood why Emile had said that they do not ride him like that at the moment, because they have his long term development in mind (chasing the high marks isn't always top priority 😜).

Tbc once I've had some dinner 😁
 
You're BD website front page atm MP!

Training weekend here- ridden lesson yesterday and driven today. Different trainers but both working on the lateral work to improve the suppleness (by chance they both picked up on that as the exercise of the week!).
 
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I loved watching Emile's approach with the young horses - everything was kept flowing, smooth and progressive with a real emphasis on 'connection'. All the horses shown exuded confidence and comfort in their work.

Oh, and to add something I forgot on the elementary horse - they discussed her massive walk and the danger of collecting a walk like that. Emile basically said that the risk of turning a walk like that lateral was so high that they wouldn't touch the walk. Rachel added the biomechanical reason for this and said a horse will naturally develop a collected walk as it develops a bulk of core strength.

Next in was Gareth and his OH on two of their horses that he described as being 'somewhere between AM and GP', as I think he was highlighting that he sees it as less of a straight trajectory at this level of training. On the horse he was riding he was again focussing on straightness - there was a lot of emphasis on both horses on how you set a horse up for the harder movements, and how it really comes from the underlying way of going. On the horse he was riding he worked mainly in canter, using lots of little lateral work exercises to get the horse even as he tends to shift his weight slightly more over one shoulder. Gareth discussed warm ups and how part of his warm ups revolves around waking up the horse's muscle memory. Rachel then described how she thinks of warm ups in three parts - the first is making the horse's muscles warm using something like a exercise sheet, the second is getting the body moving with open, stretchy type movements, then the third which is about waking up the neuron pathways and riding movements that set a horse to start using the muscles in the way that they will need to for the exercises/movements that you are going to be doing with them.

With Gareth's OH's horse he started talking about the five canters he develops when moving a horse in the general direction of GP. Medium, extended, two type of collected and pirouette canter. I have to say, I didn't quite grasp exactly what he was saying about the two types of collected canter, I think it was just different energy/cadence levels that are used to set up for different movements - he discussed the canter gears more with his Inter I horse later. For this AM horse they started working on the beginnings of pirouette work, using travers on a 15m circle. He emphasised that it is important at this point to keep the horse moving forwards and keep the bend correct, moving the horse into travers for just a few strides at a time, concentrating on the quality going into and out of it. Then to compliment this and give the horse the idea of moving into and out of that kind of canter positioning from a straight line she was riding straight up the three quarter line and then a half 10m circle in travers, then straight out up the other three quarter line. They then moved on to thinking about canter zig zags, focussing on the set up to the start of the travers and the flying changes. Peter interjected at this point that he far prefers to see a horse in the ring where the rider takes a couple of strides to set up the bend etc to give a good flying change than a change which a has no visible set up, as he tends to think that the rider may be winging it a bit and tempted to mark them down as a result. Gareth also talked about the importance of giving walk breaks, both for the physical and mental development of the horse and so that the horse becomes used to walking in a relaxed manner before being picked up again and keep their brain on the job as they need to to warm up and then go into the ring.

After lunch session started with a demo from Sophie Wells and two of her para riders (sorry, forgot to mention Sophie at start of post). Sophie made the point at the start that everyone is disabled to a certain extent as we are all uneven and have stronger and weaker bits and it is about being aware of that. She spoke about some of the accommodations that have been made with the riding equipment and way of training, and also about the use of voice aids. The category 2 rider did some work in trot on a 20m circle, working in some different trot gears and spiralling in then leg yielding out in stages to develop the connection and obedience to this rider's quite particular set of aids. They also worked on corners, so that the rider could ride the corners rather than the horse just taking her round them in whatever sort of bend she happened to pick. So she was riding into the corner, halting and then turning a right angle and exiting. A very simple exercise, but very effective.

Onto the Inter I horse ridden by Gareth. The theme of the five canters appeared again as he started to demonstrate them, and then showed how to use them. He demonstrated how even with a horse at this level he eases her gently into every movement he asked of her. So again the travers on half 10m circles was used, followed by half pirouettes on the diagonal, where he discussed how in a test you can place the horse to the side of the correct line to give more space to keep the pirouette a bit bigger on a horse new to the level. He then eventually worked up to full pirouettes, which he said the mare was new to. Peter gushed about the quality of the pirouettes just shown, and you could see how totally confident and comfortable the mare was with the whole exercise. He then moved on to the zig zags again, demonstrating the same progressive approach shown with the AM horse. Finally he started demonstrating the trot cadence and moving it more towards passage. He showed what a plain trot the mare had naturally, and stated how she definitely had never been a candidate for age classes, and then drew her up into increasing levels of cadence using his core and seat. It was lovely to watch and Gareth really is the ultimate technician. This was the horse of the day that I would have loved to steal 😜 - at one point he wanted her to stand still for him to talk to the audience, but she did not agree, and ended up in a sort of lamanitic pose due to moving her body without breaking the rule of moving her feet...clearly a mare with a lot of personality, she was quite the entertainer.

Finally it was Emile on his GP horse. This, he explained, was a horse that up until 3 years previous had been a showjumper with an inconvenient habit of knowing poles down (easy to see why, as it merrily clattered the white boards without a care in the world 😁). Emile discussed how the legacy of his sj career meant that he had to work a lot on his control and balance around corners and the correctness of his flying changes. Like the para rider, Emile was working on the corners by changing down a pace to corner to reinforce the control and responsiveness while cornering. He also showed another approach to the canter pirouettes, where he rides up the centre line, collects the canter and then rides a feeling of leg yield before releasing the pirouette in the other direction. Finally he worked on the changes, again using a progressive approach to build up to the one times, working through 4s, 3s and 2s first. On this horse Rachel also commented on the different musculatures developed by the sj in comparison to the dressage horse particularly in the lumber region, commenting that it is often harder to redevelop a horse than to develop a young horse/blank canvas for purpose.

Think that's about all I can remember. Hope it's a vaguely interesting read.
 
rara007 said:
You're BD website front page atm MP!

Training weekend here- ridden lesson yesterday and driven today. Different trainers but both working on the lateral work to improve the suppleness (by chance they both picked up on that as the exercise of the week!).
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Haha, so you are MP! You and Kira are officially 'news' 😁
 
Brilliant!

I survived my test ride this afternoon (for my benefit!) so off for a hopefully not too more jolly group ride tomorrow :D
I haven't ridden since September and before that May, so we will see if I make it to bootcamp monday morning ;)
 
Brilliant and fascinating write up DabDab. It's a whole other planet. I barely have 2 canters.....
Was there much ordinary mortals could take away? I like the idea of moving sideways in trot and not trotting sideways, and how to settle a spooky horse. I can see myself using those ideas. As for the rest, I think I'd just have to admire rather than aspire.
 
I have always found it a valuable weekend AE, as the years go on more and more becomes directly relevant and it's weird to be sitting there thinking about using the GP development exercises 😆
But there was loads for people with horses at lower levels, I said on the other thread that salty is working somewhere between intro and elementary at the moment depending on the direction of the wind 😂 and there was lots of good stuff I will try with her.
 
Oh yes definitely AE! Probably more if you were actually there than when reading someone else's slightly garbled memories, but the approach to training and schooling was beautiful to watch, and applies to any kind of horse and rider. One comment that Emile made was that horses don't have much reasoning ability (as we know), so you teach them things by making it simple, reward and repetition to give them confidence that they can get the right answer. I think they were all really good at showing this progressive approach to training in each of the demos, from novice to GP.

And I would challenge anyone not to watch Gareth on his Inter horse and not be inspired by the rapport and connection the two of them had. Ok they happened to be doing dressage, but it was that connection between horse and rider that made it special - striving for that through training applies to hacks, jumpers, endurance horses, just as it does to a great dressage partnership.
 
Bernster said:
Well done niki that’s really impressive.

That yard rule seems a bit off to me and quite unusual ime. Do you have a lot of jumpers on your yard MP?

Just had our last trail ride at the ranch in Arizona. Having a quiet afternoon then we are off to Vegas for a long weekend for a very different change of pace. I may do a proper report when we’re back but we’ve had a fab time here. Most fun was the barrel racing and team penning (herding cows into a small pen) both were awesome.

It took me a few days and lessons to get the hang of western riding, and they swapped me onto a quieter horse, but it’s been so much fun pretending to be cowboys and trekking round the hills near tombstone, just like Wyatt Earp - not!
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A report would be great. I'd love to hear about it.
 
I had my second xc lesson on Saturday morning, hubby says it went ok, but I was the one riding, and I'm not convinced.

Despite not jumping anything over 70cm, it felt like driving a car with the handbrake on, and he was never really taking me into the fences.

The ones he jumped were normally off a short backing off stride, and we had 4 or 5 stops... A small log jumped at an angle, and a small corner built out of poles.

So I'm a bit meh now, and feeling ĺike I've broken my pony.

Especially as he jumped grand at home on Friday so it's not a physical issue. In saying that though, I've sent the physio a message to see if she can come this week...

I really really wanted to do an arena event in 2 weeks and our first hunt in three weeks, but at the moment neither are looking very likely 😣😣

Fiona
 
That's a shame fiona, I know how difficult in can be when you know how good they can be and then they have an off day! I'm sure you could still do the arena event :)
 
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