Hard to beat this also..... canter along a track in the hills on a horse you kind of don't know with questionable levels of control and forward 🤪
Careful with the sound 🤣
🔊 sound up, hard to beat the rhythmic sound of hoofbeats on pavement to soothe the soul.
As seen through the ears of my sisters horse Dante a few days ago.
Even managed to swing a leg over James yesterday, well, kind of, I was sitting on the rail still but had to check it out. It will be the real deal in September with a couple of light rides before we head home. Looking forward to starting a horse under Anthony's guidance 😊
Measured James yesterday, he's currently standing at 15.1hh ish at 18 months old and we expect him to mature (at a minimum) around 16.2hh. I didn't waste any time getting a start on getting him up to me on the fence 🤣 It's a handy thing for any horse and their human to know how to do but with how big this horse is going to be it's an absolute necessity!
Scratches during trims for good ponies is just part of the service......
Couldn't be bothered riding last night so got the ball out and played with my horse and crazy red heeler instead. Rip absolutely loves this ball and the erratic nature of how he plays with it was awesome for Penny.
It was another moment of realising just how far this horse has come. Instead of panicking and running she has a bit of a spook then her curiosity takes over 🥰 She's thinking more and more these days and trusting me more too. It's been a hell of a journey to get to this point and I'm so excited to see what else lays ahead.
Hindquarters in the direction of flexion WITHOUT a red heeler in the way 🤣 oh and without a 2nd/outside rein as well 😁 So much try in this horse these days.
As an aside...... there's a good reason I go to Anthony Desreaux for help, host his clinics and do what I can to learn from this brilliant horseman and this horse is a prime example of it. Penny is far from easy, she's super sensitive and has a crazy amount of anxiety and it didn't take much to cause her to switch off and go into panic mode. It's been a long haul getting her to the soft educated horse she is today, one that thinks and tries her heart out (like she is in this video) to work out what I'm asking. Anthony's help over the years has certainly been a massive contributor to this horse being the horse she is today. Bring on this year's clinics.
Following on from that last video I posted........ here's me showing up to ride the horse who also has the "can't be's" this afternoon and cleared off down the paddock when I went to catch her 🤦🏻♀️
Love this! Don't have to be good at something to make progress.... just show up and be consistent and the good will come.
Little something I've been playing around with with Penny lately...... moving hindquarters in the direction of flexion from a stand still and not moving forward.
Usually if you move the hindquarters while in lateral flexion you'd be moving them AWAY from the flexion, so if the head is to the right the hindquarters go to the left. This method is the most easiest way to isolate and move the hindquarters and one of the first things I do when I get on a horse.
What I've been working on with Penny is the most difficult method of moving the hindquarters. The first day or 2 of working on it she struggled to understand it and I took just the slightest shift of weight with the slightest amount of flexion in the direction I was after. Today I was able to ask her to maintain more flexion and ask for more steps which challenged her a bit. We've both had to slow down and think with this one which certainly has not done either of us any harm.
❗️❗️❗️This is wayyyy not an easy thing to do and should not be attempted until you have the other 4 methods of moving the hindquarters absolutely nailed 👌You also need to have a whole lot of other things going well with your riding and a really good understanding of how to educate a horse. You could very easily fry a horses mind if you're not careful. ❗️❗️❗️
Little bit of sideways action with Mr yesterday. I didn't ride him for long thanks to waiting a bit to see what the weather was going to do and when I did get on it was quite fresh and breezy, a pleasant change to the ridiculous heat of last week.
We rode for a bit in a passing shower, which he wasn't too impressed about, and that gave me a wonderful opportunity to check out just how effective the short serpentine is to get things settled down a bit!
Mr is a bit unsettled in the head in this video when I'm asking him to side pass but I'm not too worried. In theory I shouldn't have asked for something like this while he was so distracted but you can't always wait for things to be perfect to do something. The question was simple, think back to me a bit and move off the leg. I've only been playing around with this for a session or two so you take what you can get and build on it. Training isn't always pretty.
Small steps, small wins, brick by brick.
A student of the horse and part time barefoot trimmer doing my best to learn what I can and help a few horses along the way. Based in the Top End of Australia.
