Schooling

Blustery Schooling

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Tuesday was a very windy day.

I schooled both the ponies after work and I was concerned that Galahad would be completely wound up, especially as I had just ridden Cookster and our steering left a little to be desired!

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Galahad though was surprisingly relaxed and we had a pretty good session.  He has sometimes been a little nappy towards the gate lately but we had no trouble this time.

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We even managed to work in an outline – of course, I didn’t get that on camera!  He is perhaps not using his hindquarters as much as I would like but we can work on that.  Both ponies will be having their backs checked this week as well, so we can make sure everything is okay.

Overall though, I was very pleased with Galahad and how relaxed he was considering the weather.

Not so fit

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It turns out that I am not quite so recovered as I thought I was.

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I was so thrilled to be riding again that I went a bit mad.  My sister and I went for a lovely hack on Monday, then I schooled both ponies after work on Tuesday.  I thought I was doing fine but on Wednesday I was utterly exhausted and riding just did not seem like a good idea.

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The trouble is that for the last three weeks I have spent almost every moment not at work asleep.  Although I am much better I just do not appear to be ready to ride as much as normal.  Or if I did I would in all likelihood slow down my recovery even more.  I  just have to accept that I need to ration my riding time.

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It is hard though.  The ponies went away to give me a chance to recover but now I have done that to some extent I want to make the most of the facilities whilst they are there.  That’s just common sense.  I suppose though that taking days off to recover now will mean I get to ride more much sooner.  That’s what I need to think about!

Back in the Saddle

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On Saturday I rode Galahad for the first time in almost three weeks.  It was so good to be back in the saddle!   It has been very strange at home without the ponies – I get home from work and there is no need to go outside.  Really odd.

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Galahad and I had a fairly short lesson (I am still not quite 100%) but I was pleasantly surprised with how we did.  Galahad was nice and calm and even when I couldn’t stop coughing he didn’t really react.  One of my main concerns had been that he would spook at the coughing and I would not be able to control him so I was very pleased!

We even managed a little jumping which I was not expecting to be able to do quite so soon.  We had three small fences lined up across the arena and jumped them in a figure of eight pattern.  I was thrilled with Galahad during this exercise  – he was very responsive and didn’t put a foot wrong. I on the other hand started coughing a bit more at this point and my legs were running out of energy – I struggled a bit to keep him going forward.  As I said  – still not 100%!

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I was so glad to be back in the saddle and I am very much looking forward to getting back to full fitness.

Dressage Divas

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Sorry for the late posting this week – I have a horrible cough and was feeling pretty miserable yesterday.  However, I am pretty excited as I had another horsey birthday present which I am able to use now the field has dried out nicely – dressage markers!

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These are doubly exciting as not only can I practise my tests in a properly marked out arena, I will hopefully be able to enter some online dressage competitions.    I have never done that before but as someone with no horsey transport it seems an excellent idea and I am so excited to give it a go.

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My arena is not hugely accurate at the moment – I paced it out rather than using a tape measure and it made it quite clear that walking in a straight line is not my strong point!  It is great to finally be able to use them though.

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Still Working Hard

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We are still working hard at our gate opening for the next trec competition.

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We are at the point now where it is not so hard for us to get the gate open.  Even walking through the gate is going well.

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The only real difficulty now is trying to close the gate again.  Our rein back when neck reining is not great at the moment – we can go backwards but not in a straight line!

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This makes it just a little hard to get the rope back on the post.  My arms just aren’t long enough!  It is such huge progress though and I am sure the rest will come in time.  At least he does not seem to be afraid of the rope any more.

Back to Jumping

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Another result of the field drying out is that I can finally use my birthday present pole sleeve and filler.

Galahad was being a bit awkward steering wise as he wanted to go and talk to Cookster so he did run out once or twice.  We perservered though and eventually got some very nice jumps from him.

It is the first time he has jumped for several months and also the first time he has jumped a filler like this so I was actually quite pleased with him.  We also popped over a water tray and a log a few times – we had a rather productive session really.  It was great to be able to school again and we had a lot of fun.

Getting to Grips with Gates

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All this wonderful weather we have been having for the past couple of weeks has meant that the fields are drying out nicely.  That is good in itself but it also means that I am able to school again – hurrah!

The very first thing I wanted to work on was our gate opening. We have another trec competition coming up next week and I really want to have improved before that.  Plus, if I work on it then the chances are it won’t come up in the course!

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I wanted to take things slowly so we started by just walking past the gate.  Working on a circle so Galahad’s head was slightly turned away from it definitely helped.  That wasn’t a problem so we moved onto stopping and standing still but still not trying to actually touch the gate.  That took a bit more work as Galahad wanted to swing away from the gate so he was facing it and could see if it tried to attack him!

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From there we progressed to lifting the rope and putting it back again and before long we could open the gate and walk through it – from both directions of course.

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We still can’t close it again but we made huge strides in just one session and I am thrilled with that.

Intrepid Treccing

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On Sunday Galahad and I had another trec event.  Most events in our area were cancelled – it was blowing a gale and pouring with rain (and sleet and hail).  We are pretty tough though so our event went ahead.   Luckily it was so windy that although the showers were very heavy they blew over pretty quickly.

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First of all we had a great lesson.  Galahad went over all the obstacles with no trouble at all.  The only issue we had was a group of scary people watching us.  We had a bit of an argument about whether to go past them.  Eventually I won – apparently he had a hilarious expression on his face when he realised he wasn’t going to get away with it.

We then had our individual class and Galahad was again really good.  Our main problem was that I did the neck reining obstacle in trot but got my reins in a bit of a mess and didn’t quite pull up in enough time before the next obstacle.  That happened to be the s-bend of poles which needs a bit more control than that!

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We also did not do well at the jump in hand.  Galahad was so good at it in training but I think I hadn’t given him enough space to think about it so he stopped dead before hopping over.  The judge still thought it was the best course she had seen us do though so I was very pleased.

Next we went straight into our pairs class which actually went even better.  The in hand jump was still not good – we didn’t get over it at all – but everything else was brilliant.  Galahad was a star and I was so proud of him.

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It turned out that we had managed to win both our classes.  That has never happened to us before so it was pretty exciting.  We had a fantastic day despite the weather and I am so looking forward to going again.

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Lovely Lesson

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The day Galahad was clipped I managed to squeeze in a lesson before the ponies came home.  He had literally just been finished so he started off feeling rather fresh and bouncy.

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All at once though he started working really nicely  – in a proper outline and everything!  It was the most amazing feeling as he has not really done it consistently before.

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Sadly I failed to get any photographs at all from my lesson. These are old pictures from a trec training day!

It turned out to be a great lesson – I really managed to crack using my hand and leg to stop Galahad loading his shoulder and falling in. I’m not saying that it will never happen now but I least I know I can stop him!

Playing in the School

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Whilst the ponies are away I am taking full advantage of the opportunity to use the school.  I haven’t been able to school the ponies for a couple of months as the fields have been too wet so it is great to be able to play in the arena.

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Galahad was possibly the noisiest he has ever been when I have been riding.  He kept calling to Cookster and was rather on edge to start with.  For a moment I thought my brakes were going to fail!

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Actually we were fine though and Galahad worked hard.  As usual his right flexion was not great but considering how long it has been since he was last schooled he did pretty well.  We have plenty we can work on but it is good to be able to make  start.