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.

Awww, what, never? It's forbidden?

Yeah, geldings and mares are always separated. I think it is daft.

Had a lovely ride in the evening sunshine. The woods were beautiful with bluebells out and she was better behaved than yesterday :)

I RODE TODAY!!!! [bugrin]

I took a handful of painkillers and went out for a quiet amble round the fields. Still feel fine (thank you ibuprofen and diclofenac!) Maree was bright but impeccably behaved.

Well done SSD - good old painkillers :)

Hooray! Hooray for bluebells too, wish we had a bluebell wood within hacking distance - there is one we are allowed to inch round but the tracks are all hidden pothole-y and lethal when ground so hard.

Might ride in the school today, there's lots of Stuff happening in village so will be too much traffic whizzing past all day.

Need IDEAS for school though. Am bored just imagining it.

Ugh @ riding in the school! I like to do jumping in a school, but we are not allowed to jump in our school (up their with the separated geldings and mares for daft and irritating yard rules!).
Ideas ... practice something difficult?! With my mare that would be getting a balanced canter around the short side! But I'm sure with your far more capable horses you could think of something more difficult to practice!?

Hahaha, even if the horses were more capable I'm not! Where can you jump then? Do you just find things on hacks? There are jump fairies who strategically position logs and interesting obstacles on some routes, I love letting horse decide whether to soar 6' over or take some incredibly circuitous way round.

Difficult for my horse is to canter a 20m circle without motorbiking - and it's all sandy and dusty and annoying. Am not riding That Pony until he promises to never rodeo again, and feel too neurotic to inflict my bulk on the dartmoor of course I could stay at home and do some tidying up?

GD had a fantastic time at Pony Club Easter Bunny Hunt on Saturday. They met at the local stately home, bunnies (older girls in bunny ears) set off 10 mins ahead, then pony club, with proper field master, chased them round the woods and fields, had a proper gallop and jumped lots of logs, then a long walk back through the woods to cool down. Then tea on lawn of posh house, and nobody disapproved that I'd brought shop cake instead of baking!

We all went for a nice sedate ride last night just at walk to stretch pony's legs, and have found a brilliant bridleway I didn't know before, and GS thinks he might start riding again!

Meant to say Mitchie, don't tidy up, the mess will still be there when the lovely weather's gone. Go and enjoy yourself with your horses

Best advice ever, especially if the mess isn't there because someone else has tackled it :) that happens increasingly often

and anyway it is not May day, I thought it was for some reason, but it is all just as sleepy and sunny as ever so am going for lovely long hack - hooray for me!

blimey - forgot I hadn't posted on here for ages...

Anyway - Li'l B had lice...was going mental at DD cos she kept scratching and picking lice out of her hair so I wet-combed her every night for 4 nights and they were still coming. Thought I was going mad till I brought in Li'l B and groomed him, the poor fella was crawling !!! THey were getting on DD when she gave him his nightly cuddle ..... treated them both with some Renegade (for cows, but best I could get round here) and he appears to be clear now (though the morning after he was covered in masses of dead lice...eewwww)

Then they had second doses of flu/tet jab so been off for 3 days...hopefully will ride again tomorrow.

DD in France for the week so I'll have to exercise both.

Mitchie - I am a jump fairy around here! I am forever dragging out branches to build jumps and satisfy my need to jump - apologies to any Exeter area non-jumping riders who get annoyed by their local jump fairy (although I think it is walkers who get more annoyed!) :) However we do have woods at this yard which have a couple of jumps already set up.

Olderyet - that Easter bunny hunt sounds fantastic fun!!!

I gave DD a lunge lesson on the mare today. It is the first time DHorse has been lunged with a rider on. She was not great, but DD did very well. She had a little canter, and practised her jump position :) I had a little ride in the school afterwards.

well, thank you all jump fairies :) had never ever thought of inconvenience to walkers - but am low on sympathy as they have alllllllll the footpaths and everywhere, we just get a few bridleways and green lanes and have to share the latter with crazy land rover people! Definitely too long in saddle yesterday but it was cooler and they were raring to go, still can't canter due to post apocalyptic style dry cracked ground. Just RAIN please. Too much to ask?

international sideways show jumping (2'3 haha) on Friday, will be thrilled to go clear but actually suspect we will win if everyone stays home to watch the wedding and it's a one horse race - am also taking rodeo Joe which could be one of my least sensible moves but you never know? He usually concentrates on jumping and likes it and forgets to buck etc

Manatee........I wonder if it's you in our local woods-we could vaguely be classed as "Exeter area". I love you jump fairies. Not very good at making them myself......end up either massive or a stick on the floor!!
My lovely boy is still going very well. Had his "worst" day on Saturday..........though barely comparable to past ponies "worst" days
Very spooky and needed a lot of encouragement (though, to be fair, I was asking him to pass through the village )
He did it though. Passed drain covers (a huge problem for him atm.....not quite sure what he thinks they're going to do , a mini-digger in somebody's garden and even a man playing with a chainsaw!!

Despairnosity, fronts barely lasted four weeks and am having him shod all round right now. £££ :(

at least am wearing them through hacking and not solely through pawing the ground, lovely one this morning and got chatted up by benign sort of white van perv

and back in snaffle at last (not for jumping though, just hacking) he looked really happy about it!

EP - Shillingford/Cutteridge/Haldon are the woods around here to have my jump building inflicted on them :)

Mitchie - I don't like the sound of new shoes every 4 weeks :s

I schooled today, then rode in the woods, all very lovely, the mare even did a turn on the forehand, very good for her!

Went swimming in the sea after (not with horse!), it was so lush!

Manatee.....ah, you're not our jump fairy then :(
We are in Bridford. There's a special horse box park at haldon isn't there? Is the riding good? Is the horse box park near the cycle area, do you know? Would love to come and jump some of your creations
I agree, shoeing every 4 weeks doesn't sound good Mitchie Infact it petrifies me. I think I'm going to have to put fronts on Dpony (after vowing to keep him barefoot)........I think it may be the start of something very expensive!!
Dpony jumped a stream today (unexpectedly!) and "pulled a wheely" when I asked him to stand by a gate so I could open it
But apart from that he was a dream. Opened 5 gates and only had to get off to shut 1

Ooooh. We tried to ride to Dunsford woods from Ide once - that is near Bridford right? We didn't quite make it but went along a nice bridlepath by somewhere called Spanish Lakes and met some other riders who said there are good rides around Christow, but we never tried to go out that way again for no reason in particular. I miss my friend also having a horse - that was just after Christmas and we took vanilla vodka with us - fab fun :)

I have only ever hacked up to Haldon rather than boxed, it was an hour hack from the old yard, but + 20 mins from the new yard make it that bit harder. Their are some nice tracks, but also some which are badly maintained at the bottom end (towards Shillingford).

The mare has had to be stabled the last few days because lorries have been going through her field. So when I rode her after work she was really lively, it was great [cgrin]

have been too busy admiring all those clear round rosettes to post :) really proud of rodeo pony yesterday, he was about to explode with excitement of it all (show jumping) there were four riders between my two but none of us wanted to do it on him! Luckily old instructor from long ago was there and she got the measure of him (although she came off once ) and took him round the course, he was quivering all over at the end (it was quite scary, he's only jumped our boring things before) but looked very pleased. Horse went clear every time of course, except when instructor offered to take him round the working hunter course (his favourite) and he was so excited (plus she was sort of riding him a bit too much if that makes sense, you have to let him assess the fences for himself mostly) he flicked her off his back too - and then just bounced round sideways, cat leaping everything. Might stick to show jumping with him!

Obviously mildly biased but he should be placed if not win sj competition next month, he was so fast and fluid and flawless :)

also met people who knew rodeo pony when he was backed and abandoned in field - late as I suspected, heard them whispering about him. Love piecing their histories together, and feel encouraged that although he might be 8 he's not even quite an average 6yo in terms of experience yet

Aww, Mitchie, your horse sounds an absolute star! Never mind the working hunter - I'm sure it was that he was being overridden, sounds like he can do it perfectly fine with no interferrance from the rider!

:)

where are you lot? Haven't dome much since Friday, hacked a couple of times. Need a bit for horse that is somewhere between the kimblewick (essential for sj) and the loose ring snaffle, might visit the bit bank and try a few.

Hi Mitchie, been riding all week as on holiday and such lovely weather. Our local jump fairies have been out in the woods too. By the end of the summer I'm going to jump a little one. The rangers in the country park where we ride leave big piles of wood out for the fairies when they do tree work.

GD loves the idea of being a jump fairy so she and I are going up later to drag a lovely log we spotted yesterday to the perfect spot we found for it (mustn't squash the bluebells though, they are lovely)

Let us know how you get on with bits, I'm considering changing my mare from single jointed eggbutt snaffle to a french link as she's a bit fussy about her mouth and a bit reluctant to work on anything but a long rein. (her teeth are done now, but were terrible when I got her) I'm thinking maybe less might be more, but I'd be interested in what others think