Saturdays Ride

Saturday 24-9-11

Today I finally had a sunny day.. well half of the day at least. But thats all you need for a ride. And that's what I did. I rode.

First because Prince hasn't being exercised in ages I took him down the back and backed him up on the end of my twenty-two foot line thinking- oh yep I'll just stand him there for a bit. Nope! He spun on his hind legs and fired off at a full gallop (I was still holding the loose end which I just let go- there was no way I was going to get rope burn for this!) straight up the hill down the little race (and me thinking oh no! There is no gates shut! What if he goes out on the road!) out to the second-to-the-front paddock. I dashed up there hoping and praying that he hadn't gone on the road only to find him eating grass by the trampoline. Arg!

I caught him and then walked him back down the hill (shutting some gates this time!) and then I backed him up and this time was prepared when he bolted again.

I braced my legs and arms, and to my surprise (I forget how flexible he is) his head snapped around and his feet followed. At this point he had come to the wooden blocks that was almost a bouncer (to much space between it to be a proper one) so he had to do half a stride and then jump, two strides and another half and jump.

This is really really good to do before you ride, especially if they are hyper! It really takes the stuffing out of them. Of course to keep him from being bored I changed it a bit.

The jumps were positioned at ten to five. One jump on the big hand and one on the small. So on all the empty space on the other side (about halfway), I asked him to change to directions. When you are going full blast (extremely fast canter) around a twenty foot circle this is really hard on your horse unless you've done it before at a walk, trot, and slow canter. With the jump combination he was busy, busy, busy! After about four minutes of this I stopped him and gave him a rough rub and a treat. He was blowing a bit. Not much. So I took him around to the back and asked him to side pass about, oh, the whole fence line. He did half of this at a canter (yay! Cantering side pass!), and the other half and a walk.

He did that with a bit more sense then the jumps. So then I asked him to go between the fence and me and then disengage (cross his hind legs over and keep his front feet still). I noticed he moved his front feet and didn't cross his legs. Hmm. So I held his head steady and looked sideways at his butt (he could see what I was looking at from the side of his head) and he disengaged but still didn't cross his legs. So I picked up my carrot stick and tapped his butt. That worked.

Then to relax him I rubbed with the the carrot stick and let him eat (this relaxes him- just the type of horse he is).

I noticed at the beginning he had bucked a lot (I had the saddle on him). So to test whether he was ready to go riding I send him out to do a walk, trot, canter, and gallop on the end of the line. Nothing. So far so great!

I lead him back up to the house and tied him up. It was only then I noticed he was quite hot. Never mind, what I was going to do out riding would cool him down.

I mounted up from the ground (I've only just started this because of his weight- he was too fat!- and it made it too hard to get on him), and rode him down the drive.

When I turned him on to the roadside I just let him stand there, for a few minutes, and then asked him to go.

A few meters from our house I realized there was horses coming up. So I jumped off ( I wasn't going to risk me getting chucked off because of a few horses he wanted to meet!). I walked him past (he kept looking longingly towards their paddock) and I noticed the chestnut Thoroughbred mare was in foal! (Goody! I thought)Also she had a half Arab half Thoroughbred paddock mate near her. There was also a yearling foal in there. Not sure what mare she belong to.

Once past them I mounted up only to have a truck come down the road. I decided to stay on and see what he would do. He did nothing! So that was good.

However I had to keep pushing him him to walk, because he had to stop and look at the holes in the hedge! Finally I got sick of him and just turned him around and mostly trotted him home. That was a bit scary because he used his big huge high stepping trot and to post to that you had to do this- post-post, sit, post-post, sit (instead of post sit post sit-) Very different! For the post-post bit there was practically no touching the seat. Your butt would only brush the seat then bounce back up again.

So I found that I could keep him under control and trot him a lot! Great for confidence!

Tuesday 20th of September

What an awful week! it has been raining almost every day of the week, and prince who has made the most of it has been tearing up his already muddy paddock. so finally i got sick of the mess and he had run out of grass, so i shifted him to the front paddock, where he promptly rolled five times.
  This morning i came out to find him trotting around and around his paddock (exerising!) so i opened up a fresh strip of grass and he dived in without even saying "Thanks!" piggy!
   i took some pics of him in the new grass with my high speed sequince (or however you spell that lol) focus and got some neat pics (last week in the mud!)
  here they are!

Food? pleeasse??

oops! there is a fence, quick where's the brakes!?

fresh grass in his new paddock

front paddock, prince all filthy!

Last Week

Tuesday, September 13^th 2011-

So! spring started off beautifully here in the 'Naki, almost two weeks of sunshine! But pity that rain came along and ruined it. Prince's paddock is muddy and he is up to his fetlock joints in mud! But not only that because of the fine weather he has started shedding his long thick guard hairs, so the rain and the wind combination was bad! I found him this morning dancing around the paddock almost yelling to me “Hurry up mum! Hurry up! I'm cold and starving!” well he was, but boy! he didn't have to yell.

In his excitement he kicked me. Well ok! he nicked me on the back of my knee, and left me with a big blotch of mud there, and nothing else thank goodness. I got back from Wanguni late last night, too late to feed him so i got Pat to do it. I set up his feed and told her to just grab the last massive slab off of one of my hay bales.

This morning as i was walking up the drive i saw the fence was down around one of Pats trees (and since i know my horse loves eating trees) i started to panic a bit because she really didn't want that tree to get eaten. So i speed walked up the drive and got there and opened the gate and fed Princie boy, turned the fence back on and then looked at the tree (i had to get him outta my hair ya know) it turned out to be a big branch that had fallen over it(Much to my relief)! So i just hauled it off and straightened up the fence and then gave him a wet hug and kiss (well, he was wet not me!) and then fled back inside to get ready for course.

Introduction

For all of you people who don't know me, my name is Grace, and that is all you should know because this is my horse's blog not mine. However i am his writer so if i don't get things right i might be fired (but unfortunately for him I'm the only writer he has :-D).

I'll have to tell you the basics of things. I'll try not to give you to many details. You know being a wannabe writer and all i best not let slip that i have fallen from three different horses four times and have zero confidence in myself. Well that is not entirely true, i have more now thanks to Prince.

The first fall i had was off my first horse Cinders who used to bolt for home, and then the next day was no good to ride because she was to sore from her arthritis, in her back, by the way did i mention that i fell off on a metal track and landed on my head? Yeah well that hurts!

My second fall was off a fast young horse called Molly, who cantered on the wrong lead (leg for you none horsey people) and joined with the saddle slipping i fell off, landing and rolling in a nice soft patch of long grass. Yay!

By this time i had lost just about all confidence and trust for horses and i refused to go any faster then a walk.

However much to my disgust my next fall was off my horse. The horse i had only just got and had owned him for about six months. He had grass staggers really bad, he could even stand straight while i was picking out his feet. His feet would shake while i was doing them. Also he was badly dehydrated, because he did not like drinking from the plastic trough because it tasted like plastic (i don't blame him).

I tried telling my mum (who had never seen a grass staggered horse despite having owned horses for twenty years) that he was sick. She told me to -just get on and ride him, so i did.

When he saw the other horses in the paddock eating a new strip of fresh grass his befuddled mind told him that he was supposed to be in there and stuff riding. He threw me off with this nasty combination- buck, rear, buck, rear. I landed on my shoulder and rolled!

After that i refused to get back on him. I just started doing heaps of groundwork. About a year later i was slowly starting to ride again (its not like the movies where you just get on and whola! you get all your confidence back and you can do anything!) nope i was just walking around the paddock and doing short little rides around a farm.

Sadly my third fall was while i was feeling kinda confident about riding. He got a fright from a herd of cows running out from behind a row of trees, and a dock brushing him under the belly. His mind reverted back to wild horse instincts and he thought, i must get this tiger off my back or its going to kill me! He reared and spun around on his hind legs and then put his head between his front legs and just bucked and bucked. I had lost my stirrups and my reins and i was holding on like a bucking bronc rider. One handed on the saddle. But lastly he spun again and the saddle slipped and i fell off. Pity, because i landed on my head. AGAIN!

So that's brought you up to date on my confidence and my falls.

Right'o. Lately my confidence has gotten good enough for me to ride him again now that i ride by myself ( nobody to worry about except for my horse), and i have been doing trotting and trying to get him to side pass (go sideways), only he does it when i don't think about doing it.

The trotting we have being doing is around the tramp in the paddock. Yes, we have a trampoline in the paddock! Unfortunately its been squashing my grass, so i'm going to have to road ride again.

Beginning Words

I suppose I'm a bit slack. I should be writing a big long welcome letter, and everything. I had one but I left my USB stick at home. Pity!
   So next time I'm on here hopefully I'll have the introduction. Also just to let you know, i'm still working on my heading and a few other things so thanks for being patient. Next week on tuesday i'll have most things up and going.
  I had to write something because this blog looked boring.. Sorry!lol