Nostalgia

Do you ever just have them days where you find yourself missing the ponies you used to love? Today is one of them days.

We were using the old computer yesterday to upload some photos from various things that have happened over the past few months. Having not used the computer for a long, long time I couldn't resist the temptation to look through a file titled "Holly horse riding", and what I saw gave me a wave of nostalgia for the stables I used to ride at.

There are two horses in particular that I miss because I rode them a lot. The first of these horses is called Nigel. He is an Irish Sport Horse (though riding him you wouldn't believe it - his attitude was far from get up and go!). He is 15.2hh, and according to an old page on the stable's website he was 13 years old when they uploaded the profile.

How adorable is that face? I learnt to canter on this horse. I'm not entirely sure when the website was made, because although it's copyrighted to 2009 I have no clue as to whether that was for the previous website they had, or whether it's from when they revamped it and added all the horsey profiles. If we go by the copyright, then he's 19 years old now. I absolutely loved this horse, and was quite sad when his owner moved him to a different yard. I've not seen Nigel since, and he was so loveable. Obviously, I have no way of tracking him down so I don't even know if he's still alive, but he is definitely one of the horses that I'll always remember.

The second horse I'm feeling particularly nostalgic about is another Irish Sport Horse called Ronnie. Now, his canter always made me feel like I was sitting weirdly in the saddle. He had such a skinny frame that his canter literally made my hips feel like one side was further forward. But it was such a lovely canter, if I remember correctly. Ronnie was absolutely fab, and such a gorgeous roan too. He's 16hh, and according to the website he's competed for PC and BE.

I think he was sold, but I don't know who to. I've no clue if he is used for a riding school or what. I know he is a fab horse though, and whoever has owned him since his days at the stables I used to go to is really lucky. At the time the picture was taken he was about 9 years old, so he must be 15 years old by now, again assuming he's had a healthy life.

These horses taught me so much. I could list a few others from my old stables, but one of the others that I loved unfortunately passed away when an unknown virus hit the stables. The other horse, as far as I know, is still there but towards the end of my time at the stables, when I rode he r it wasn't the same as when I was beginning to ride. Although she is lovely, I think I was too used to the slightly more unpredictable youngsters.

Anywho, it'd be interesting to see if any of you recognise the above! Wouldn't that be a small world?
I hope you are all well. Feel free to share any memories you have of the horses and ponies that have stuck with you throughout the years.

Until next time!

NB: I didn't take the photos - they are sourced directly from the website owned by my old stables.

Following the leader & Plaiting

Hey everyone!

Yesterday I had my first pony club session in quite a while, and I was on my favourite horse. Naturally, I had high hopes for the lesson. Unfortunately, Bails had other ideas and decided that he would be in his follow-the-horse-in-front mood. I wouldn't have minded this too much because I was having quite the battle with the stirrups (which I had to twist twice because they were so long, and even then they were still three holes away from the shortest length) but it meant that I couldn't successfully complete the serpentine. The whole point of us doing them was to encourage bend, but where he kept falling in slightly to try and cut corners to be up close and personal to the pony in front, I had a hard time encouraging that bend when I also had to keep a firm hold on the outside rein as he wasn't responding to my leg. So that was fun. I would have worked on just the bend, but we were working on accuracy so I kind of had to keep him on the track.

We later had a little bit of a competition so see who could strike off most accurately into canter at A. Bailey, the rascal, knew he was cantering and so on the first attempt he went in the F/A corner without me asking for it. On the second attempt he still went as I moved my leg mere millimetres - not even squeezing or anything like that - and he went off like a rocket so I went too early. He lost brownies points for not listening to me, but it is something I plan to work on next time.

Another thing we started yesterday was plaiting, as we're working towards this badge next. I'm quite excited as it'll be my first badge. I'm possibly going to get the equine first aid one, but I don't feel deserving of it as I missed at least two of the sessions in regards to it and my knowledge is quite lacking. I wouldn't know what to do if an injured horse was in front of me, to be perfectly honest! I think the blue cross website and the manual of horsemanship may have to be my friend for quite a while.

Anyway, I was plaiting Bails' mane in his stable, and needless to say he wasn't helping. I've never plaited a mane before, and his was quite knotty so the separations weren't all that clean. Then, as I started to plait his head was a bit like a yo-yo as he found the best parts of the hay to eat.

I think he was deliberately being annoying when I went to tie to the braid. We were just using elastics, but he would not keep his head still, and then the braid just looked wrong. You know how you fold the braid so it's in that ball shape? Well, two folds seemed too little, but a third fold emphasised the lack of braiding at the top. I hope that makes sense. It would have helped if the separations were better.

My instructor said that next time we will be working with a needle and thread. Goodness knows I won't find that quite so therapeutic! If any of you have any tips for the plaiting the mane of a hungry horse that doesn't like keeping still, please tell me haha.

That's about all from the stables. Have you ever had any tack that just wasn't the right length/size?

Until next time :)

Almost flying!

Hey guys,

First off I just want to apologise for my erratic update schedule (or lack of). I have not forgotten about this blog, I just haven't gotten around to writing anything in a while. So today I'm going to tell you about my last two riding lessons, because they both nearly saw me flying - in very different ways.

A few weeks ago I was riding a lovely cob, who I'm sure has made an appearance in one of my other posts, and we did some no stirrup work. It was a group lesson, so thankfully there was plenty of walking. The first thing that was a bit problematic was that after the normal stretches you do when the stirrups are taken away (swinging your leg backwards and forwards from your knee then hip, rotating your ankles etc) my legs felt quite tight, uncomfortably so. The stretches basically had the opposite effect to what they should have had. I tried to shake my legs out but it didn't really help. I have narrowed down the source of the problem to either my own dehydration or perhaps because the said cob is quite wide in comparison to what I usually ride, and maybe my legs were at a weirder angle than normal, thus reacting differently to the exercises. Whatever it was, it eventually faded away and I got on with paying attention. So the next incident (and enough time has passed that I'm not quite sure if we had our stirrups back or not - if we did, then I lost them) was when we were cantering. We cantered from the front of the ride to the back, but went past the ride to circle. For whatever reason, my centre of gravity was not matching up with the horse's, so the circle was a nightmare and I very nearly came a cropper. If he wasn't one of the slightly lazier horses who is only too happy to slow the pace, then I probably would have fallen off. Thankfully I could slow him to a walk within a few steps and correct myself. It was really frustrating because I haven't had that sort of problem for a very long time, and I used to ride a horse that treated corners as though he were a motorbike. So that was that lesson, with my near flight being due to almost falling off.

The next lesson was much more dramatic. I was riding the horse I did when I had the cross country experience a few months ago. She was practically a different horse in this lesson. It was a private lesson because pony club had been cancelled, so maybe being by herself was the cause of the issue. Whatever it was, I wasn't best pleased. The first part of the lesson was fine, but the moment we got cantering it went downhill. She is quite quick, and she was not slowing down for anyone, and she was so strong that the exercise might as well have not worked. But the problem is that the horse doesn't realise she's doing anything wrong. She isn't doing it to be naughty, and it isn't that she is trying to get rid of me. She's just fast. My instructor was introducing me to flying changes, so we were supposed to pick up a canter in a corner, then cross the diagonal. We were supposed to trot over X and then pick up canter as we reached the track. By the end of the lesson I felt like I had no control over the horse. I could just about slow her down but she wasn't listening particularly well. In fact, over the diagonal she didn't trot at all, just jumped over the pole that was in the centre of the school and did a flying change. She's smart enough to know that was what we were aiming for. It was a little scary, but my instructor had faith that I would be able to pull her up. Which I did. It just meant I wasn't focussing on the riding aspect as much as staying on and slowing down. The part where I was really flying, however, was that in one corner she picked up the wrong lead and I tried to slow her down and move my feet to give a clearer aid. She hadn't come back to a trot when I must have brushed her with my heels or something (I definitely didn't kick her because I was being so careful about that, the little roadrunner she is). Anyway, she took off at what must have been very close to if not a gallop down the long side. She came back to an overly fast canter for the corner. Such fun! Hopefully the next time I work towards doing a flying change I'll be on a different, more sensible and calm horse haha.

That's about everything for this post. I hope you are all well :)

Until next time!