I've had just the best horsy weekend ever 
perfect end to what's been a really nice half term holiday.
After writing my post about my confidence wobble the other day I felt a bit silly! Reading back through it there was nothing he was doing that was uncontrollable or tbh that I couldn't cope with. (I guess that's confidence for you. Your brain works in silly ways!!)
So on Saturday I decided to suck it up and take Peds for a hack. Solo hack, freshly clipped! And he was a saint. (I really really need to stop being surprised when my pony behaves!! It is a regular occurance after all!!) So we enjoyed a lovely 40 min hack in the only dry spell of the day!
Then yesterday we went off to riding club for a Dressage comp and pole work lesson. Was a bit late getting there as my friend got mixed up with what time I wanted picked up at so i didn't have much time to warm up. But got a wee walk and trot round before we were up.
It was intro C, the new test and i have to say it rides really well. And Peds?? We'll he was just a little star!! Considering I've not ridden a huge amount this year, and no work in a proper school he went amazingly! He was so calm, had a little look at the judges table first time past it and decided it was time to pull out his turbo trot going into our second 200 circle! But other than that he was great I couldn't have been more pleased with him. It was going to be my last time doing just the intro test, I had decided before I did this one that next time we'd be doing the prelim and as we were doing the test I thought, yup time to move on. Icing on the cake was that we came 1st!!!! The first red one Peds and I have won and my first 1st ever in Dressage I had lovely comments, with lots of helpful pointers and a score of 69.22% (or there abouts. I'll need to double check)
Then had an hour till our next thing which was a dengie clinic weigh in. Peds came up at 405kg on the weight bridge and 3.25 condition score. She said he was slightly over weight but she wasn't concerned but it was something to keep an eye on. She suggested cutting out his bucket feed and giving him his suppliments in a cored apple. In part to help him drop the last wee bit but also as he's really itchy, to see if any of the feed is causing it. She also suggested full clipping him! I've cut out his grass nuts as they are new to his diet this year and am debating full clipping and giving him a good bath. I have plenty rugs so he won't get cold if I scalp him!!
Straight after the dengie clinic we had our pole work class. There were 5 of us in the class, two horses, a big pony and peds and a fell. The instructor asked everyone what they were wanting to do. She came to me and said "I've taught you before, you just do poles don't you? Is that all your wanting to do?" So I said that I would like to eventually jump him. So what did we spent the whole lesson doing? Jumping!!! Now I was only doing tiny x poles that Peds stepped over most of the time (the others were doing bigger jumps) but we jumped a whole course twice and from a canter!! And that's a huge thing for me! I can no longer say Peds doesn't canter in a school as he was raring to go and have to put all the blame on me!! He was pulling and speeding off at first but once he realised he was going to be aloud to canter he settled down a bit.
I feel I've had a weekend of huge successes! And Sunday was just an amazing day. I want to do it all again!
I have photos and videos but they won't upload from my phone so I'll add them either tonight or at lunchtime.
perfect end to what's been a really nice half term holiday.After writing my post about my confidence wobble the other day I felt a bit silly! Reading back through it there was nothing he was doing that was uncontrollable or tbh that I couldn't cope with. (I guess that's confidence for you. Your brain works in silly ways!!)
So on Saturday I decided to suck it up and take Peds for a hack. Solo hack, freshly clipped! And he was a saint. (I really really need to stop being surprised when my pony behaves!! It is a regular occurance after all!!) So we enjoyed a lovely 40 min hack in the only dry spell of the day!
Then yesterday we went off to riding club for a Dressage comp and pole work lesson. Was a bit late getting there as my friend got mixed up with what time I wanted picked up at so i didn't have much time to warm up. But got a wee walk and trot round before we were up.
It was intro C, the new test and i have to say it rides really well. And Peds?? We'll he was just a little star!! Considering I've not ridden a huge amount this year, and no work in a proper school he went amazingly! He was so calm, had a little look at the judges table first time past it and decided it was time to pull out his turbo trot going into our second 200 circle! But other than that he was great
I couldn't have been more pleased with him. It was going to be my last time doing just the intro test, I had decided before I did this one that next time we'd be doing the prelim and as we were doing the test I thought, yup time to move on. Icing on the cake was that we came 1st!!!! The first red one Peds and I have won and my first 1st ever in Dressage I had lovely comments, with lots of helpful pointers and a score of 69.22% (or there abouts. I'll need to double check)Then had an hour till our next thing which was a dengie clinic weigh in. Peds came up at 405kg on the weight bridge and 3.25 condition score. She said he was slightly over weight but she wasn't concerned but it was something to keep an eye on. She suggested cutting out his bucket feed and giving him his suppliments in a cored apple. In part to help him drop the last wee bit but also as he's really itchy, to see if any of the feed is causing it. She also suggested full clipping him! I've cut out his grass nuts as they are new to his diet this year and am debating full clipping and giving him a good bath. I have plenty rugs so he won't get cold if I scalp him!!
Straight after the dengie clinic we had our pole work class. There were 5 of us in the class, two horses, a big pony and peds and a fell. The instructor asked everyone what they were wanting to do. She came to me and said "I've taught you before, you just do poles don't you? Is that all your wanting to do?" So I said that I would like to eventually jump him. So what did we spent the whole lesson doing? Jumping!!! Now I was only doing tiny x poles that Peds stepped over most of the time (the others were doing bigger jumps) but we jumped a whole course twice and from a canter!! And that's a huge thing for me! I can no longer say Peds doesn't canter in a school as he was raring to go and have to put all the blame on me!! He was pulling and speeding off at first but once he realised he was going to be aloud to canter he settled down a bit.
I feel I've had a weekend of huge successes! And Sunday was just an amazing day. I want to do it all again!
I have photos and videos but they won't upload from my phone so I'll add them either tonight or at lunchtime.
