Weekend plans

Well I’m a broken record with hacking and a competition!

Sat I went to Beacon with Rooni. Was meant to meet a friend there but her lorry broken down before she left.

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Had a lovely quiet mooch then spent much of the afternoon in the pub with my gf eating my body weight in food.

Sunday a pretty lazy start to the day. Went to Moulton for two novices. He was ACE. Really becoming very consistent. He had several flaps about the cars on the road next to the warm up. The water was right across the road and the splash back was coming higher than the hedge!

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Other than that he was great! Little tight in the first test. Just squeezed into 3rd/7 with 68.45% and won the second/7 with 70.32% :)

Tomorrow I am off to London for eating and drinking allllll day!
 
Glad so many people have managed to get out and about.

I'm back on board and not nervous which is fab.
Jumped Amber today. Only in the arena but popped an 80 oxer a few times in readiness for a jump saddle fitting tomorrow as I'm getting a saddle for my 50th birthday. So for once I have a healthy budget. Excited. X
 
Oh that's excellent AE, hope your fitting goes well. We are booked in a couple of weeks for a saddle check/fitting but our budget is hoping it's a check not a swap lol
 
Glad so many people have managed to get out and about.

I'm back on board and not nervous which is fab.
Jumped Amber today. Only in the arena but popped an 80 oxer a few times in readiness for a jump saddle fitting tomorrow as I'm getting a saddle for my 50th birthday. So for once I have a healthy budget. Excited. X

Brilliant! Well done. Also exciting on the saddle, let us know what you go for!
 
Sounds like some good weekends have been had.

I’m so pleased with my boy. Four hours of travelling, which he handled well. Really chilled when we got there, warmed up beautifully (warm up was limited to 15 mins, so spent 10 mins walking round a very busy and muddy car park first!). Was rather tense in the main arena, but it was first time there, third time out, and there were three arenas crammed in, with lots of flowers and banners. So was pleased with 67% and 6th place. Team also did well, and we were 6th. So much more to come from my boy, so delighted with him.
 
Sometimes my ridiculous spooky horse surprises me so much.
A local farmer rents some of our fields for crops. He’s taking hay off it for the next few years and has some sheep on them at the moment. We ride the perimeter of the land so he erected electric fencing for sheep (low down and practically invisible...) which gave us about a 10 foot wide path around the edge. Other side is mostly ditches or hedge.
Anyway, I haven’t been round it due to weather etc so last night I decided to try my chances but I got to one bit and realised they’d been digging the ditches out and piling the mud up on our path. This meant in some places there was about 3 foot gap to get through between spooky mud/rubble and invisible, low electric fence. It was too narrow to turn around so we just had to go for it. Bless Millie, she stopped at one point and turned her head back to my foot as if to ask if I was actually serious about this but she seemed to know we were in a sticky situation and she had to behave herself!
Needless to say I’ll be having a word with the farmer to ask him to move the fence a bit to give us safe access. Honestly, one spook and we would have been either in the fencing or falling over the piled up mud.
 
Entered the 70 which went ok, a bit sticky and we had a stop at the third fence (first oxer...) which was totally my fault but then when he was re-presented he jumped it fine and kept the rest of the course up. I was quite nervous going in which he was picking up on. Decided to throw caution to the wind and enter the 80 and i'm so glad I did! Went in feeling weirdly confident and he absolutely flew round, really jumping confidently and out of his stride. One of them he jumped massively and I nearly flew off the top :D he was having a great time. We kept everything up too for a clear, I was so pleased. The best ting was I actually enjoyed it instead of being petrified! Came out feeling so good, I love how he feels when he jumps bigger and well. We got a 5th
The only thing that got me was before the 80 when there was someone warming up and a woman on the gate not letting anyone in to the warm up as 'it was a young horse'?! what?? so we were all hanging round outside until the horse went in...which I though was a bit ridiculous as the horse is going to have to get used to busy warm ups at some time!
 
i was supposed to be out at one day event but unfortunately he went actely lame and was on three legs , farier and vet both attended , soles have gone really thin and brusing , had been around a farm ride the weekend before , front shoes back on , in just couple of days back sound and happy horse again xxx cant belive the difference
 
i was supposed to be out at one day event but unfortunately he went actely lame and was on three legs , farier and vet both attended , soles have gone really thin and brusing , had been around a farm ride the weekend before , front shoes back on , in just couple of days back sound and happy horse again xxx cant belive the difference
Oh that's a bit gutting, did you mention you thought he tied up after the farm ride - did you get bloods and did they indicate a tying up episode? If not maybe it could have been sore foot related. Glad to hear you've got a happy horse again though
 
Well we got to do some dressaging! Was very pleased for 66.7% in Prelim 2 and 6th place in a very strong class. Lovely comment about how he was a happy pony throughout - since PSSM took over my life that is all I've cared about, making sure he is happy and feeling well. Usual comments about needing more bend to the right (this has always been our stiffer rein), and a few 'wobbles' in the centre lines cost us some marks so plenty to work on but it's nice to have a benchmark. Well done everyone else who has been out and about!
 
Hey everyone, I've been missing from the forum for a couple of weeks as I've just been so busy but have enjoyed reading everyones posts!

Had a busy weekend. Saturday saw us take Chilli for some xc schooling. Lots of g'waannnnnnn needed and I managed to deck it twice... Once for a dirty stop at the TINIEST box coming out of the water... Secondly at a SMALL roll top where I almost stayed on but accidentally flung myself back over too hard from the side I was hanging off and fell over the OTHER side onto my head... But when I actually got my act together we jumped some fences which were a fair size for me!
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Yesterday I took a friend's horse out with the bloodhounds. She was an absolute tank the whole way round for the whole 3.5hrs we were out, over challenging and incredibly hilly ground. I only unbridged my reins in the final hour!

We got a bit muddy!
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Today I am mostly trying to recover as two falls and 3.5hrs of having my arms pulled out is catching up on me!!
 
Oh that's a bit gutting, did you mention you thought he tied up after the farm ride - did you get bloods and did they indicate a tying up episode? If not maybe it could have been sore foot related. Glad to hear you've got a happy horse again though



hi , yes we checked him for tying up , bloods fine , vets said to crack on hopefully wouldt happen again then day after went on three legs , was crying my eyes out as hes not a horse that would actually show anyting and was hobbling , had shoes on sat and completley different horse now , so please was very scary week last week with him , hes having day in the field chilling today before coming back into work , they think sun was poss related due to being sore but then actually brusing didnt start comig out until much later on in the week xx
 
I did some poles with a friend on Friday. J was super and really started to enjoy it. we gave him lots of breaks and praised him loads and kept it short and sweet.

Saturday I solo hacked around the village. It was raining but quiet at 7am so perfect. he was much more chilled then he has been too which was great.

Sunday my OH came with me on foot but I was super anxious about other things and it was blowing a gale. J picked up on it all and was on his toes and trying to go home, so we did a short circular route but didn't turn in the road.

This morning I hacked out solo for an hour and did a long route we have only done twice with another horse (and the last time was around 5 weeks ago!). He was a super star. We didn't canter up the big hill as it was so slippery and I didn't want to blow his brains, but he genuinely took everything in his stride and listened when he wasn't sure of something. I have been sat at work with a massive grin on my face all day!

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Went to a showing clinic on Friday which was excellent and then off to some dressage yesterday. It was howling a gale and pouring with rain and a venue I didn't know but nothing ventured nothing gained. In first test it has free walk from XFAK - the wind got up and all the arena boards which were those long white ones which fit into the letters were buckling backwards and forwards in the wind and the letters were swaying along in rhythm so at F, I thought I think I will shorten my reins a bit just in case they suddenly went with the wind ...did get comment not enough free walk shown - yep with you there on that one. Won the elementary so pleased with that although not the highest score known to mankind.
 
Well I am the very happy and very proud owner of an Equipe ECarbon saddle. 2nd hand but even so, the price nearly made me choke on my coffee :eek::eek:

BUT this is a joint pressie from husband, mum and dad for my upcoming 50th birthday. Plus I'm chucking in half the money myself. I have never gone out and bought the tack I wanted before. I have always bought stuff that fits the best within my not-very-big budget. So this was a real treat. It is SOOOOOO nice to ride in. I feel so much more secure. The difference is amazing. I sit better and I popped an 80 oxer and was fine over it. Not being tipped forward like in my old saddle. Amber went sweetly so she gave it the thumbs up too.

Harry hopped on to test it over bigger fences to make sure it is stable even at the higher fences. Amber decided to break to trot just before jumping a fence up at 120cm. TWICE. :rolleyes::rolleyes: Harry says she makes him laugh. He really likes her. I think he wants the ride on her but I miss her and want her home so that's the plan. Not long to go....

 
Had a really good lesson this afternoon, working on collecting the canter to get a more fluid transition to walk. Canter half passes are coming on really well, we worked with changing between half pass and leg yield which really helped to open his shoulder up for more reach so practising that is homework.

We played with different hand positioning, carrying them both a little higher in an upward transition helps to keep the softness as does inside hind higher and outside hand nearer the wither in the half passes. Experimenting with that over the next week is also homework.

Pammy lessons next week are cancelled unfortunately as she understandably doesnt want to travel but I will go to regular instructor instead
 
We also had a fab lesson today. Trainer asked what I wanted to work on and I said Zigzags, so we started with the inter1 canter zigzag, making sure she let me influence the positioning so we landed from each change already travelling in the new direction.

Next we did 6 strides of half pass each way, early prep starting towards the GP zigzag 3,6,6,6,3 on the centre line ? counting, changes and steering in place, still homework on the quality though, obviously!

Back to trot for a look at the inter 2 zigzag and then the super steep GP halfpasses. All achieved provided I think ahead about the positioning rather than getting to each way point before preparing! With all the advanced moves it's made or broken in the prep, once you've started there is very little you can do to rescue it.

Home to kinda doom and gloom news about work so desperately hoping I will keep getting paid and we can train on while everything is cancelled. I know theres a very, very long way to GP still but it's starting to feel like it could actually happen ?20200317_154556(0)_compress36.jpg
 
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