May 31, 2009
Hail!
May 30, 2009
More horses
I've got Gem, who is coming back into work. The plan is that I will have her for 2 weeks just to get some solid work into her as Mum has been super busy lately. Then I will return her to Mum for Solway dressage in a few weeks.
And also picked up Kody who is coming back into work and will hopefully have a nice full winter season of outings.
They both travelled beautifully and were even well-behaved while I rugged them up and put them out (same can't be said for when we were trying to take their rugs off to load them up! crazy excited horses for a little while there). Managed to pop into RD1 a few mintes after they closed, but they were nice enough to let me in so I could grab some additional fencing stuff which will give me some work to do tomorrow (laying underground cables for electric fencing).
May 29, 2009
Dani goes home
And I didn't have the patience to wait any longer with Coco! I gave her a hose and a brush which she was very well behaved for, then tacked her up (just to see if any of my gear would fit, honest!). And because she'd been so laid back for that, I couldn't help but lay over her back. You know where this is heading, yeah? So I hopped on and took her for a walk around the sheds and things, then down the driveway and over a few brides.. through the stream. And then we did some circle work. The only thing she really did 'wrong' was being quite tricky into canter, she is running into the transition at the moment. But not bad for the first ride! Certainly not complaining. She wouldn't eat the apple I gave her as a treat after her ride... but Dix didn't mind as it meant he got 2!
May 28, 2009
Coco arrives!
May 27, 2009
Coco in transit
May 25, 2009
Tielcey Park CT
Pippa Session 2
I can now pick up all 4 feet - she's still not great with the back ones and may pull away occasionally, but she is absolutely getting better and seems to trust me very well. She's leading up at my shoulder again too (she had started hanging back and being a little nappy when we first started on a couple of the new training methods - but now that she understands what I am asking she seems confident to 'remember' what we had taught her previously). It's a long slow road, but hopefully it's all worth it in the end. Going to try and get her hooves trimmed this week! Then we can really start doing a bit more variety of work.
May 19, 2009
Wellington Eventing & Updates
May 17, 2009
Videos instead of Dressage
Of course the weather was better by lunchtime, so we probably would have been okay. But instead I got to spend an hour clearing the driveway of fallen trees and parts of fences! It was certainly windy!
So today, instead of pictures from the dressage day, you can see some of the vids of the horses. Xev and Dix were taken this weekend, and the short snippet of Dani was from a few weeks back at the QEP training day.
Xev over some jumps. She is such a kind horse, and gets rider out of trouble when I stuff up strides occasionally! Also a few cute little angles over the last few fences.
Xev warming up for jumping... reminds me that I need to be more effective on the flat and ask more of her. She does lovely dressage, I just need to push a bit to get a little more sparkle out of her.
Mr DickyDick doing some jumps! We're still working on having me waiting for my fences so that he doesn't get too excited about it all. But he does get better as he warms up. The first few times I jumped him he was quite flat over the fences, but now he's starting to get some better form back.
And finally a little snippet (about 10 seconds!) of Dani through one of the combinations at QEP. It was his first time doing it, and though he had a little look at the ditch he still jumped it - he's a very honest jumper when it comes to things like that.
So... no competitions this weekend which is a real shame. I'm going to have to get out during the week in company as all the horses need a good outing amongst others. Hopefully the weather will play nice.
Some more pics
May 13, 2009
Manawatu ODE
May 06, 2009
Tracking Pippa
Yesterday I worked mostly with the ropes and did some legwork. She was showing a bit of dominance, which I am working hard to recognise in it's smallest forms so I can address it before it becomes an issue.
Today was really fantastic - did some leading work and something similar to lunging but not quite (just really getting her to respond to my requests based on a number of cues). Then I did a little more legwork and she was fantastic. Never even put an eyelash out of place. Even had her dinner in the shed too (she was still a bit nervous about being in there - especially with the thunder and lightening), but she never pulled back or made a fuss.. just got a bit wide eyed!