Friday 16 July 2010

Meg and her canter button

I took Meg down to the all weather arena at Solway again today and this time Nicola was kind enough to take some video for me. Once we had done what we wanted to I handed the reins over to Nicola so she could have a ride. It was nice to see someone else on Meg and she was a good girl. You cannot help but smile and laugh when riding this horse. She's the best!



And here are a couple of Meg with Nicola:








Tuesday 13 July 2010

More trailer time

Today Meg had another session loading and unloading (rinse and repeat) and this time the video was charged so Nick kindly came out and captured a few minutes footage. I also brought Brennan in to introduce him to the joys of the horse trailer. His only previous experience with trailering came when he was loaded and travelled from the deep south up to us. I don't think that was the best experience either (he was completely exhausted when he arrived) so I was not sure how he would react when asked to load ... turns out my concerns were unwarranted and he reacted as if he had been doing it his whole life. I literally dragged him out of the paddock, whipped off his rug and threw him on! What a good boy! We'll work some more on technique and style later in the week (I kept getting myself tangled in the rope and he kept sniffing the floor of the trailer and threatening to clonk himself on the noggin - boys!). Oh and please excuse my inane wafflings - I forgot to dub out the sound when editing the video!

Meg


Brennan

Monday 12 July 2010

Monday

OK so what's news? Meg went to a dressage rally at the local club showgrounds yesterday. It seems she has forgotten to canter or at least I have forgotten how to ask her to! The grounds were super wet so we shared the all weather with some other horses and worked on riding into the corners and our canter transitions. The canter transitions were, shall we say, expressive! I am going to take her down again during the week and see if we can get a bit closer to something resembling a semi decent transition up to canter and hopefully maintain the canter for a little longer than half a dozen strides! Mr Whippy is going to become a regular training aid for us now I think. As we are currently sitting in 3rd place (half a point between us and 2nd place) on the winter series leaderboard, I am really keen to do well on the final day next Sunday. Nothing like a little bit of pressure is there!

Meg also decided to 'get her mule on' when it came time to load on the float and come home so I spent half an hour today 're' educating her to float loading - rinse and repeat - rinse and repeat. Reilly had a wee session too as apparently, when he came home for winter, he fibbed and said he could not possibly load on to the truck! So today, for your viewing pleasure, I have a brief video of Reilly (covered in mud, unbrushed, au naturale) loading on to the float. I would have video of Meg too but the video camera battery was flat when I had her down so it was plugged in and charging and ready to roll by the time Reilly's turn came along.

BIG news however is that I have heard from Gavin and Nicole and, all going well, Brennan should be off to be educated under saddle next month. VERY exciting news!! I can't wait to see the boy strutting his stuff under saddle and he needs a job to do!