Riding log - anyone interested?

[SupersonicDave]

Saw this on a horse forum and thought it would be a good idea.

Basically i need a bit of help with motivation (too much to do, not enough hours in the day etc) and can get a bit stuck in a rut wrt schooling/hacking/lunging.

So, today i am riding out my mare, a friend is riding my gelding, and we are going to ride through the village and back across some grassy tracks. Want to concentrate on keeping my mare calm, especially on the grass.

ML - all those nice words must have gone to his head. It's amazing how as soon as you think you've cracked it with them they completely change your mind for you.

Dappleton - I don't think I've ever long reined......mind you I've never had a 3 yr old! Has he done much at all or is he a completely blank canvas? Don't underestimate the time it'll take to get to know him either, dhorse has been with me for almost 6 months and I still don't feel we have that bond yet, we're getting there though, and after Sat I have more confidence in him!

Hi Frosty, yes he's pretty much a blank canvas, from what I know he was backed and sold in a ready-to-race sale, he was then in training for probably about 6months before his first race in which he performed very badly. I think he's spent the last year just moving around yards waiting to mature, which is how he ended up in my yard. The owner then decided enough was enough and retired him. I've done a little bit more schooling with him today and hope to hack him tomorrow. All I ever seem to read lately is the importance of long-reining but i've never done it before either. Oh well best to stick with what I know I think otherwise i'm just going to confuse the poor horse !

Frosty,your horse must be the ultimate bombproof horse if he can cope with all of that.It is the sort of thing that you could never reasonably expect to come across on a hack out.

We are going great guns here.The dds ride every day apart from Tuesday,dpony's day off.We have been over the fields through the sheep,and had a lovely canter,but with a herd of beast following behind.DD1 looked like a reverse cowboy.DD2 is now confident enough to go on ahead of us up the bridlepath and me buying a pair of grass reins has made life easier for her.

DD1 had a nasty fall at a jump on Sunday,dpony was cantering up to it,realised that she wasn't going to make it and screeched to a halt.Dh got it on camera and you can see dpony's front legs out straight in a huge cloud of woodchippings.DD1 went straight out the side door and hit her leg on the jump as she fell.Dpony just stood there looking confused.She had a good cry,but got back on and did it again,successfully this time.

Both girls had a lesson yesterday and dd1 jumped a straight jump of about 18" and dd2 jumped cross poles on her own.They really are coming on in leaps and bounds.Part of me wishes that I'd bought them a pony years ago,but then again,we might not have had dpony now if we'd started out earlier, and she is fabulous.We love her to pieces,and are having such fun that I'm dreading the summer holidays ending and the girls going back to school.

That's lovely Mirage. They come n so quickly when theyhave their own pony. Great that DD1 got over the jump after the emergency stop.

DD took dpony back to the scene of Sunday's crime for a lesson and the little gitstar behaved beautifully . Think I need to give DD some kind of calmer before shows....

Just got back from first hack with 'baby' horse. He was fab, followed DH riding on of my really steady horses and it would have been impossible for a stranger to tell which one is a 10yr old school master and which is 'baby' horse , even had a trot through a stubble field. Happy days.....

I'm jealous of you all, I had another cortisone injection into my hip on Monday and the thought of sitting on a horse is making my eyes water at the moment - it's hard enough sitting on a chair, and I came over all peculiar doing my weekly shop 'cos it was so sore. However, I'm hoping to have a go on Sunday.

Mirage - the weird thing is that this is the horse that is terrified of drain covers, bikes and sundry clumps of flowers and yet at things that he would be well entitled to have a complete wobbly about he was remarkably cool!
Re the falling off - when we were little my grandmother (who was a fearless 5'2" lady who rode her 17hh hunter and hunted it until she was over 80), used to give anyone who fell of a polo - a tradition that I maintain today!

Dappleton - have you look at the Retraining of Racehorses website, there might be some handy hints there!

frosty-dpony would be with you on drain covers-trolls who grab pony's ankles live down there you know..

Dpony is very very steady,but huffs and blows a lot when we go past a certain field,and looks very worried.I had to tell dd2 to keep her leg on dpony and make her go past yesterday.I thought that it was the silage wraps that she wasn't keen on,but my cousin told me last night that there is a small pen of pigs just behind the hedge.That explained everything-ponies hate pigs and although she can't see them,she can obviously smell them and it bothers her.

That is good advice about the polos=I'll use that in future.

It is peeing down with rain now and the dds have to ride later. I also have the dds two cousins until tomorrow teatime.They are petrefied of horses,but are going to have to accompany us to the stables later and possibly tomorrow too.I forsee lots of screaming if dpony so much as ambles towards them.What larks!

We have the falling off fairy who brings you nice things if you fall off - which ds responds to well.

Well done to Dappletons baby horse ! Dpony is only 4, and pretty good, but did a lovely jump sideways yesterday when I was leading him down from the field at a carrier bag poking out of a bin

Yard show on Sunday, so I'm having a go at in hand showing then

Been at Equifest in the pouring rain all day today. Thank goodness it is at Peterborough which is one of the best venues for coping with bad weather.
Huge entries (many people left without stables) and I've never seen so many horseboxes in my life.

Going back on Saturday as DD has more classes then.

I think we're at BSPS on Thursday and Saturday next week.

Anybody else going?

We might go [just as spectators our pony is not registered or show pony material and we haven't competed her yet].I haven't decided,although the weather is meant to improve over the weekend.

The 2 pony fearing children got up the nerve to actually ride dpony today.Their mum was very pleased as she used to event and do x country years back and despaired of her dc ever being brave enough to pat a pony,never mind ride one.They are besotted with dpony now and desperate to ride her again tomorrow.

Good luck for the weekend Butkin and CMOT.

Good luck all who are competing this weekend. We're having a weekend off as the ground's still too hard here to jump.

Lots of fun this week, gd went out on hound exersize with the Pony Club, had a fantastic time and old pony was fantastically well behaved, kept up, jumped a hedge and a gate without hesitation, and stopped immediately he was asked to! I love that pony! It's such a shame that she won't be riding him for much longer, they're such a great partnership. Hopefully new pony will be just as good.

Gd has definitely got the bug for hunting and is planning to bankrupt us this winter! The only downside is that yard owner is an ex hunt-sab and isn't impressed

Oh olderyetwider,we very nearly tagged along on the hound exercise! The kennels are very,very close to us.We decided against it as pony loves hunting and might be a bit to forward once she sees the hounds.We have arranged for the girls to hack her to one of the local meets and then their instructor will take dpony out for a blast and bring her back at 2nd horses.

I got a phone call from my friend who was out with the hounds,as one of her dds was struggling a bit and she asked if we could stable the dds pony and look after her dd until they finished.Eventually after much tooing and froing,they all decided to call it a day.

We rode dpony over the stubble today-we are lucky in that the local estate are happy for us to ride where we like and they have over 2000 acres.I think dpony thought she was going hunting as she did the fastest trot I've ever seen her do-ears pricked forward,really belting along.DD2 was on board and I really had to run to catch her up.

OMG I need to get fit quickly!!!!

Took 'Baby' horse for hack number 2 this morning, same route as last time, DH leading on calm horse, did all the scary bits - trotted through the open stubble fields then saw a bicycle loaded up with a bundle of sugar cane about 500m away (pretty much on the horizon as was on a bit of a hill) - didn't think twice about it, sandwiched 'baby' horse between hedge and DH's horse when he started looking and snorting thinking he'd just continue to walk, but he wanted to be off. Started doing some funny leaping thing (think he wanted to buck but I was holding his head so he couldn't jam it down so he couldn't actually manage it and it resulted in strange spinning and leaping) - probably didn't help that I took my feet outta my stirrups in case my balance went so was by now clinging on and proably inadvertantly frightening him more - oh what fun. Anyway after a couple of minutes of this I started to get so tired that I was actually looking at the landing thinking it looks pretty soft down there . Anyway at this point I got my senses back and decided that I was so tired that I was only going to hold on to him from the ground - so got off - then suddenly thought now what - i'm looking up at 17HH of snorting TB towering above me (i'm 5ft2 and a size 6-8). Anyway, by some mircle, the man with the bike started to turn and walk away from us (I think he was fearing for his saftey more than mine!), once he disappeared 'baby' horse calmed down and I managed to get back on and walk him home (he walked back if so nothing ever happened!)
So good news is that all the craziness was over something very specific, bad news is that i'm clearly not fit enough if I can only hold a horse for a couple of minutes before thinking that falling getting off is a better option!

Going to school him later as I think a lot of the problem is he doesn't really understand my aids so doesn't listen to me properly. Feel really bad also that i'm actually happy he's not fit - his back needs muscling up as he's been out of work for so long, I think when he's fit I need to be even fitter - back to the drawing board!

will never catch up, but have scrolled through and pretended to read most posts

looks like am not the only person loving the stubble fields, have never had access to so many before and they are lovely and never-ending. First ride for a while so thought would be good idea to walk and trot about sedately, then realised was just being silly so had a gallop. Forgot am not excessively fond of galloping downhill but was fun.

Autumn hunting soon!

Good day in (mostly) sunshine at Equifest today. DD just had the one ride and won the Open M&M LR in class of 20+. She was thrilled as she was riding pony which wasn't expected to do as well as her stable companion.

Good to hear stories about successful hound exercise. We'd like to get DD out Autumn Hunting as long as Roan doesn't get over excited.

Congratulations to your dd Butkin !

Congratulations! Butkin am sure have asked before but are you Suffolk or Thurlow? Think am going with E and S in couple of weeks, just to see how he gets on. At least is just a couple of hours, what's the worst that can happen?

Hi all, back from camping holiday today so haven't ridden all week, although I did have a quick go on the sunday morning before we went. Dh was obsessing about packing (don't know why, I always end up doing most of it while he does something 'essential' like print off a map) and I didn't want him to know I was riding so sneaked my hat out and had my first bareback ride for about 20 years. What a shock! I can't believe I used to ride bareback practically the whole time, jumping, galloping about etc. Dhorse was only walking and I felt extremely wobbly! He has a very bouncy stride anyway but I didn't expect him to feel so slippery, guess I need some more practice.

Anyway, now for the funny part (a bit long sorry). Dh didn't want to go to our usual campsite in Somerset because he wanted 'a change from horses' so we decided to go to Warwickshire as we had our very short honeymoon there and had always meant to go back for a longer stay. I asked for campsite suggestions on the MN camping board and got a couple of ideas but the first site didn't seem to be answering their phone so we looked up the second one which was Stoneleigh. Saw a nice hotel on the website so thought the campsite must be in the grounds or something and dh rang up and booked. Well, when we finally found the place it was in the middle of the National Agriculture centre, there was a massive showground all in a beautiful park which we had practically to ourselves. Dh's face was a picture, when we got directions to turn left at Pony Club headquarters I was laughing so hard I nearly crashed the car.
It gets better. On our second day we went from having only one other tent as a neighbour in our enormous field to being surrounded by horseboxes and trailers as some people on a 'course' made their camp. I soon 'befriended' the first person I saw in jods (she was trying to clean her teeth at the time ) and discovered that the course was a Parelli one and they had a huge place literally on the other side of the hedge with round pen etc. Poor dh, I think he lost the will to live ha ha.

pixel!

Mitchy - I used to hunt with Thurlow and DD is member of their Pony Club. However we now live in Suffolk country so mostly go out with them as hunting on Saturdays is much easier than having a day off in the week (Thurlow hunt Mondays and Thursdays).

Well done Pixel - there is no escape!

Was the campsite nice Pixel ?

I came first in In Hand today, and ds got second in fancy dress. I was pleased with the in hand as apparently dpony really looked good. Photos on my profile if interested

Haven't posted here for ages and no time to really catch up on posts but -

Dappleton - I long reined the mare endlessly and she is an unschooled wazzock of a pony on the whole, so I wouldn't say it was essential :)

Rode today or the first time in about a week and a half due to school holidays. Did a bit of (very messy) schooling, and then some jumping in the field in the woods. The mare as on her toes there as bitch-women from the old yard now has her 3 horses on a teeny patch of grass in her garden next to our woods and her maniac-pony was calling to her the whole time :-/

CMOTdibbler, well done, love the pictures!
Wasn't it you who suggested the site? It was great, acres to explore (I even saw a big black cat disappearing into the woods!), lovely little farm shop and tea rooms with delicious cakes. Facilities were basic but ok if you didn't look too closely (every basin had hair and other nasties in the plughole, 'luckily' I'm very shortsighted so turned a blind eye literally!) and the disabled loo was a bit wasted as there was no light, but hey ho, we had the place practically to ourselves so ds just came in the Ladies with me. If anyone goes there I would recommend taking plentiful supplies as there is nowhere for miles to buy food or anything (farm shop gorgeous but pricey so ok for emergency milk and bread but not much else if you are on a budget like us). Plus it was cheap, only £10 per night including electricity in August! Would definitely go back (possibly armed with bleach and marigolds) but would have to be careful to time it right. Just before we arrived the place was packed out with people doing the off-road driving course which wouldn't have been very restful at all. The Parelli lot got up early but disappeared all day and then were too exhausted in the evenings to make any noise so they were very good camping neighbours. (All that lungeing is hard work! I did spy on them a bit I confess.).

had 1 hour jumping lesson and was an absolute mess, tired so easily - have lost all my riding fitness in just a few weeks (only ridden once all month)

also thought jumps looked big (they were 2'6" ) and generally felt shit, which is silly as every time I did them we were fine and ultimately achieved objective which was to go in a straight line BUT needed excessive amount of nagging from self and everyone else . probably did about three minutes of actual riding all lesson :(