Snow!!

woweee!! it snowed at last thursday night, i woke up to 5 inches of the stuff in the garden, and there was even more at the stables, it came up over my wellies in some places!!! I played with General friday morning online and he was soo exhuberant, prancing around like a gazelle! he made me laugh when i was trying to yoyo him, he got down and rolled! then he stood up and carried on yoyoing xD it was as if he was saying 'just wait one sec, i just HAVE to try this!' lol! then i turned him out and woahhh did he go for it!! he had a great time bucking around!
Today i took him for a walk but the snow was so deep and he was so playful and excited that i had to turn around and come home as i couldnt keep up! i fell over once and he stood and stared as if to say 'come on, what you doing down there!!'
I played online tonight on the 22ft line (a rare occasion as i always get tangled up in the line!), and he was brilliant. He did some really nice natural lead changes, weave at trot and figure 8's. very pleased!!!
heres some pics from yesterday morning:

savvy smiles!! x

Mixed Feelings...

Ok so its been a weird week. on wednesday night i played with General, he was great online, not excitable or nervous, just attentive and playful. i played for half an hour then wanted a short ride so got on and did walk trot, sidepass, worked on shoulder in, he did great. then i made the (mistake?) of asking for canter. he went into a paddy, bucking and shaking his head, but he has done this a lot before (although not in a while) and ive passed it off as exhuberance so i pushed him on and got some nice canters. however, on my final canter, he exploded! he bronced on the spot about 4 times, did a HUUUGE buck to which i sat (yay!) but i was leaning waaay back, as soon as he landed the buck he reared vertically!! he has never done this with me on board. of course as i was leaning back, i came straight off when he reared as i had no balance :( but the weird thing was, he didnt take off bucking as he normally would if something goes wrong (he's a hit and run kinda guy!), but he stood next to me licking and chewing O.O i wasnt sure what to make of that. anyway, i wasnt hurt so i got up, took his saddle off and fixed it online. i got his mind going again, made it not about the canter, then had one canter on a circle at the end, which he was fine about. we are having his back checked this week and i havent ridden him since just in case. i'd rather rule that out first. i thought it could be his saddle too so we will have that sorted as well. ahh what a nightmare!! you know when you think you are getting somewhere then it goes kaput?!
still, no riding has given me more time to play on the ground with both my partners, so I have done lots with holly this week and got her desensitised to the tarp (before it was a big scary monster about to eat her, now its something useful to keep her dry when its raining xD, pretty much perfected our circling game at walk and trot and moved on to canter. our sideways is getting real good too! ANDDD wait for it... she offered a jump at the weekend!! this is a LBI/RBE (but more so LBI) who always HATED jumping, she hasnt stepped a foot over a jump for over a year, and on sunday, she jumped a barrell without me realising what was going on. i wasnt aiming her at it, i didnt know it was there!! she just chose to go over it! of course she promtly came to me afterwards for a treat ;) very proud of her!! i think we're almost ready to assess our level 1 now! yayy!! at last!!

savvy smiles x

Taking the time and its paying off :)

Ok so wednesday afternoon was brilliant, I played online and finesse with general and he did so well, I got a couple of obstacles out for him to play with (cones and ball), he did brillaintly at figue-8, weave in both walk and trot so i decided to experiement a little, and tried to yoyo a weave between the 4 cones... it worked!! he did it perfectly first time :D i was sooo proud of him, he was really listening to me and enjoying himself. yahooo :)
I played with holly that night too even though it was getting dark, but she was really good and also had full attention on me, must be something in the air that night telling them to look interested! we got some more sideways (she really struggles with that), and also some work on her bow. she will go most of the way down but just as her knee hits the floor she's like oh! and gets up quickly lol xD but many many treats and cuddles later she started to get it lol.

This weekend has been brilliant, I played with general online/freestyle with some pushing passenger too on saturday morning, the weather was fab and so was he! i had my ipod on and listened to music while playing and found it really helpful, it kept me nice and calm and he was much more attentive than usual with no spooks or going into his own little world. I had a really nice ride on him and we popped a couple of jumps too which we havent done in a while because the ground has been rubbish, he enjoyed that even though he knocked the smallest one down over and over.. he's so lazy sometimes! when i was online he was pushing the ball around and it bounced off the fence into him and shocked himself, so he reared right up vertically (like you see in films lol!) it was gorgeous!! lol. shame i didnt have my camera as he doesnt do that often (guess thats probably a good thing?!)

Sunday I played again and he was brilliant :) had a ride bareback and got my trot better, did some dressage moves (leg yield, shoulder in) and he's actually better doing it without a saddle?! lol. then i put the savvy string round his neck and did some riding with the carrot stick and he did pretty good :) he still has some trouble going to the left with the stick guiding him but we're getting there :)

Spent some undemanding time with them both last night by taking them out hand grazing into the spare field which has crazily long grass, they stand all day looking at it longingly so i decided to treat them lol. Only problem was getting them back to their field afterwards...

Hoping to have tomorrow morning off school so might get a session in :) then i finish next thursday for 2 weeks so expect lots of updates :)

savvy smiles x

Joey and Magic

This weekend the weather finally let me get some time to spend with the horses! I played online with general saturday morning then hopped on for a quick freestyle session, he was pretty good but his lack of recent riding caused him to be a little spooky of the hedge with the 'troll' in it (or so he thinks). after a while he was alright :) On sunday i took him in the school for a ride, played online again first then got on for freestyle, he was being all silly because the yard was busy and he wanted to look at everything, i kept telling myself pat's advice... 'never knock the curiosity out of a young horse', so I sat as a passenger for half an hour while he gawped at everyone and neighed and stared xD. We got some nice work once he had established that nobody was taking any notice of his whines haha.

Sunday, I played with Magic the little welsh mountion pony, she's coming on so nicely, and for a 21 year old she has so much energy!! she can outrun me by miles haha. Played online seven games and did a lottle more practice on her bowing. she loves doing tricks!! i'm going to send in my level 1 application soon for her. wish us luck!.
In the afternoon i played with Joey the mahoosive freisan. Joey was a driving horse until last year, he's 14 and only been backed to ride for 7 months. He's spooky and very very right brained, but on sunday he started to show some left brained signs. he's so willing to please, he's just so frightened. He tends to run into a blind panic.. having a 17.3hh freisan stallion speeding towards you is er... scary? haha. he's lovely though and i think he's going to do very very well. I've given his owner some homework for him, just to play LOADS of friendly game and defending her space, she's new to parelli and very keen! I also advised her to buy the level 1/2 dvds.

Didnt get much done with holly as mum was riding her quite a lot, so thats still good! holly's getting much easier to hack out, she used to refuse to go in front (not fear, just I DONT WANT TO), now she will go most of the way in front of the ride :D loving the effects parelli is having on her!!!

i have the afternoon off school tomorrow so might get a couple of hours in. hopefully!

savvy smiles x