glad i'm not on Caroline's hill

the "feels like" temp was below freezing where i am, cos of the go through you gale, hate to think what hers was like.

so no work done...

but did manage a loose horse moment - not mine, friend's welshy as the gate got away from me when i was getting M, but happily all he wanted to do was walk up to the barn and my stentorian bellow brought owner sharpish.... apparently this must be regular, as he loves the barn (he doesn't live in it!)

i don't know why

i bother to try and lunge.  as G says, i should concentrate on the in hand stuff, that she hasn't the patience for or knowledge of, and let her do the lunging.

hey ho.

not a flash in the pan

for the first time in a long time i rode after work in the winter .. didn't last year (did lots of in hand etc) and didn't the year before particularly..

but having, seemingly, sorted the problem i wanted to be sure it wasn't just a "flash in the pan" and if it wasn't (which it wasn't! :-) should get back into it again...

but oh it is dark getting form stable to arena. some of the yard lights have gone awol/stopped working

and it was lonely, and pretty damn cold!  until i got going.

TBH, i probably wouldn't have tacked up, but I knew one person was yet to come ....

so we did about 10 minutes int he arena under the lights, which only light half the arena at the moment, the top end is a black hole, think a light needs moving slightly

but all good

Saddle was the problem

So pleased we sorted that out on Tuesday in my lesson.

Took me 4 goes to get it spot on today but the result was a good session with only minor plants whilst he twigged it easy sorted.

And have to say I'm glad he chose the subtle method of saying it wasn't right, just a shame it took me so long to hear him

no follow up from lesson yet

because, of course, the weather has been bad....

fingers crossed for a nice weekend, and that my left shoulder stops misbehaving and starts working properly again tomorrow... no clue what i did, but it started hurting whilst i was watching TV last night... not good....

excellent lesson

and saddle sorted out...

i didn't need a new one, i just needed more shimming at the front...

after that, he went a lot better and this time I've confidence that that will continue... we started off the ridden work with RI hiding in the corner, so as to prevent, as much as possible, any of her high energy vibes interfering with M's reaction to what I was doing...

all i need to do now is keep riding, and that's very weather dependent, of course....

now i just wish i could keep the SI aid in my head .. i've been shown it/told it so many times, and can never remember how to do it....

doh....

oh, and i really wish partner hadn't taken my nice riding gloves to Guatemala with her... i know this is what i get for keeping them on the dashboard where she can just randomly picky them up and put them in her pocket, and i know she does that.. but still....

Starting to get it right?

Lovely afternoon for a wonder. I decided to ride

Pleased to say that whatever i did right i did get nice walk and volunteered trot both reins

That was interspersed with a fair bit of difficulty in terms of standing about refusing to move but i was pleased to get over that.

Think i have an idea what the difference was.

But got movement and didn't want to do too much more as this was the first ride since the shoulder injury

if you're ever in leeds..

La Grillade is well worth a visit (as a treat...., not cheap, but wonderful).  so that was my day. went down for lunch with some colleagues from various parts of the country and put the legal world to rights...

stil in best kit when got to yard, happily he was already in so all i had to do was put tea in.....

daylight

due to some time off work...


but stil only inhand work. haven't yet been able to lunge/loose school (well, G hasn't, LOL) and i've organised for RI/saddle person to come Tuesday so minded to leave riding until then and resolve the saddle issue (Hopefully!) at the same time...

and jean, no hot shoeing for racehorses over here... that WAS his first ever time.  apparently he was quite entertaining working out whether or not he could put his foot back down after the farrier had offered up the shoe to the foot to check but not actually put it on... down, up, down up... and then was very good to have them nailed on.

hot shod

i've always preferred hot shoeing, if one must shoe, since the heat, IMHO, helps kill any bugs and provides a better result all round,  but M had probably never been hot shod....

he was today, and was very good about it

:-)

more in hand

because its good for him, and whilst we think he's sound and fine, it's as well to come back slowly. the fact that its nippy and dark being neither here nor there... LOL

smartly clipped

well, almost. G clipped him yesterday, and he does look good, but it took her ages and she was losing the light so there's a few tram lines to tidy up and his head still needs doing.

and tonight i did a spot of in hand, to start us back into something.... it didn't rain, and was warm, amazingly - well, it was about 11 C, which is warm enough i think!

sound or not sound?

that is the question.

the idea was that i would free school him, but since he would only trot for me if led, turned in to me at the first sign of the lunge whip doing anything other than drag on the floor.... we did walk free schooling instead.

got him to the point where i could keep him moving with the handle of the lunge whip pointing towards his belly and me walking slightly to the inside and behind the withers ... G will see today....but he seemed ok in walk and we were in the arena for about 20 minutes, i think...

also, he's going to be clipped today as well....when i took his rug off - which is only a lightweight - he's been getting too warm under it....surprising, as it hasn't, really, been warm at all (overnight frosts and to us it doesn't feel that warm through the day....)

aah the dark.....

it's a new moon with quite a bit of cloud cover as well, so it surely was dark...

two of the outside lights have died, actually i think there's another couple gone but since its last winter since they were on i can't remember where they usually are, i just know it was darker than normal...

i was there before the bringer in er (now there's a phrase - i turn another person's horse out in the morning, she  brings mine in at night, normally before i get there ) so was walking the field in the dark again tonight - happily, found them .. but they cantered off away from my torch back to the gate..

looking forward to saturday when i shall have some daylight and we shall see whether M can be worked again.. i think so..

and jean - it wasn't the farrier that was wrong yesterday, it was Gaynor.....

glad of my lie in

as it's g's day today and i have a steaming cold...

but it was funny

all week G has been saying, farrier today...she organises that..

so i rang tonight and says "hows his feet"..

doh, she said, farrier is next week...

otherwise, he continues sound, thank goodness!

hi viz rugs

i want one.

three of them somewhere in the field... couldn't be seen....

it was quite scary, actually, especially until i realised there were 3 out there and i wasn't looking for a random heap of darkness which was worrying me after 10 minutes walking round pointing the torch in all directions and seeing nothings.....

the people with the other two managed to get theirs and mine came to the gate at that point (out on your own being no fun!).

phew...

not as bad

Monfils went out much less stiff this morning, and when he got to the field he trotted and, whilst still clearly not right, was huge amounts better than yesterday.

so hopefully the massive antibiotic injections are doing the job

but we will have to keep a close eye on this....

if it has been an underlying infection we don't want it coming back, of course, and if it's anything else, that'll be a big bill to find out...looks like some time off again for him....

in the meantime, partner is now in guatemala and i have 3 months on my own.... once i recover from that long drive home on Friday, i'm hoping to enjoy...

dodgy shoulder...

that shoulder that got kicked.. the wound healed cleanly and he was sound last weekend; i blogged on Wednesday about what happened Wednesday when Gaynor rode... since got worse... vet out last night....massive painkiller by injection, injecting antibiotics, take our pick from underlying infection or fracture of some sort.  he's not too bad in walk, but trot he's clearly dropping shoulder and he tried a canter in the field and stopped himself. he's out, as they're in the big field effective this morning and that's pretty level, unlike the other one. and we reassess on Monday

:-(