stretch

Another sunny autumn day had the darned bot flies out in force; Chapsi has BIG problems with them and whilst I was poo-picking he had a massive tantrum and high tailed it round the field for ten minutes! It's pointless trying to catch him when this happens as he is so unconcerned for his own safety that it is pretty dangerous. Eventually he came to me for help and in trying to swot the damn thing for him he caught my hand with his hoof while trying to do the same! No lasting damage but I got him up to the stables pretty pronto for a shower off and a snooze; didn't work him as he had already had plenty and in case we found more bots.
Moo on the other hand doesn't care about the flies, good job as he's a bit of a magnet for them. I had a good session with Moo, after starting in the same 'up' slow trot as yesterday I then let the reins out and sat it out :-o  lots of turning, circles, rein changes etc resulted in a quite stretchy trot, still fast and at times unbalanced but I gritted my teeth and stuck with it for 25 mins; boy do my legs ache tonight! He is so wide that sitting for so long in a fast trot is a real killer BUT I think this is my way forward. To finish we went for more canters down the field and this time I came up the steepest part and he flew and that's after an hour in the school!

birthday resolutions

Yesterday the mileometer clocked up another year and I was ably assisted in my celebration of the event by Di along with my husband and child ( that being two separate humans). We had an 'eat until you burst'  Chinese buffet, swilled down with a drop of the pink stuff. It was a lovely lunch and once home, Di and I mulled over our horsey lives, with a glass of white wine to help of course. Thanks Di.

Before lunch I managed a ridden session with Moo; his birthday treat was to be a star :-) I have changed our warm-up and after a very short period relaxing down in walk we went forwards to trot; again on a long rein but not expecting the 'down' until being truly warmed up. This is quite a tricky process (and why I've avoided it for some time) as if I use my hands to slow him then I can't get the relaxation but I have to slow him to get the 'through' feeling and all his muscles warmed up and moving freely. So just the same as in the walk work, I turned him every time I felt the kettle starting to boil! No hands to create the turn just soft fingers to ask for the correct flexion and seat/legs/weight to define the turns. After about twenty minutes of weird shapes around the school he was really feeling relaxed, still rushing a bit but much better. We finished (after a walk break) with some giravolta work in trot coupled with some shortened trot work.

Today we continued the same warm up routine and he was a little quicker to the stretch but still rushing a bit too much, we did some nice trot/halt/rein-back transitions and then before a relaxing (well it's supposed to be) walk round the fields we had a short canter up the hill...really bouncy and short, a pleasure to sit on if a little tricky to pull up from hehehe.

Ah, the birthday resolution? To kick myself up the bum and get on with things ;-)