Ch.ch.ch.changes .....

Just look at how much she's changed!

March 2007

July 2007

We changed from the way she was worked in the past (forwards, forwards, forwards - balance through movement) more to the French Classical school which works more slowly (balance before movement).

She hasn't found it easy to work more slowly but you can see that it's paying off :)

How could I forget the new advanced moves that she's patented!!!!

Now first a disclaimer ... these are advanced moves and shouldn't be attempted unless your horse is ready for them and you are qualified to teach them. No responsibility will be taken for any hurties or ouchies caused by attempting these moves.

.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

.

.

EAT GRASS to TROT transition

One fluid movement from eating the grass to trot. There should be no walk steps inbetween. The frame should be maintained. The horse should not lose balance and fall on their nose

.

EATING GRASS TROT

An advanced version of the free trot on a long rein. The horse should maintain impulsion, stretch down long and low and should eat a mouthful of grass at each stride. They should not lift their heads between each mouthful and should not lose their balance and fall on their nose

.

MUNCHING FROM THE HEDGE LATERALS

Whilst walking or trotting forwards with purpose the horse should bend through the body, take a mouthful of hedge and then return to walking/trotting straight. This movement should be fluid with no hesitation throughout the bend.

.

.

Saff is a work in progress for these highly advanced movements but she was giving them a damn good go yesterday :)

Audition for the Spanish Riding School

Despite how chilled she looks in these photos it just disproves the old adage that the camera never lies .....

When we got to the yard today the school was booked out for a private lesson for an hour so we decided to long rein her around the field.

Saff was fairly good but was rather overexcited. She did some pretty good beginnings of piaffe, passage and levade with a bit of terre-a-terre and a mini capriole (I've seen her do better on the lunge).

She was about 18 hh today, beautifully arched neck and very stallionesque.

I think that we made it round the field quicker than anyone else in the history of going around the field :)

Apart from one spot (which she's bizarrely taken an intense dislike to) she was just very exhuberent and full of the joys of the first warm day in a long time.

The levade is definitely going to be a possiblity judging by today's performance! She just gets more and more collected and then levades.

She's a LOT more athletic than she appears when you see her on the yard and we can see the horse that she can be with more training. Even when she's overexcited she's not trying to run off and doesn't pull on the lines. Strange horse.

Spanish Walk Update

She's getting the height

and now the extension

Saffy's self service approach to clicker training!

Clicker Training

Saffy being Saffy she's taken clicker training and added her own, very unique twist to it!

She does the move, we click and Saffy treats herself to the trees and bushes at the side of the school!

We decided today that she's not an ISH, she's a IDxTBxHamster. There's no way on earth that she can pack that much food into her mouth AND the pelham unless she's got cheek pouches! I've never known a horse like it. She ALWAYS grabs something to eat and wraps it around her bit ... it's not like she's going to starve in the hour that we're in the school.

She is progressing really nicely, though, and did a beautiful slow trot today Not bad for a ned that thinks that her place in life is bombing across a cross country course!

More piccies ...long reining and ridden

Practising the Spanish Walk

She loves the Spanish Walk and is always happy to show it off :)

She's getting very cocky now, though, look at how she rests her hind leg in the last piccy :)

Even more photos ....

Saff is loving her work these days and finding it much easier than she did before. So easy, in fact, that she can do it with her eyes closed :)

Not sure what happened here but she was very excited going into canter, squealed and .... well .... see for yourself

and a nanosecond later ....

She also loves her Lucienuts .... soaked .... she also likes to give kisses just after she's had her head in the bucket ....

The 'before' piccies

Just after her shoes came off

Off Fore

Near Fore

Piccie for the hoof anoraks

Look at these lovely barefoot paws :)

We have an excellent barefoot trimmer who does her feet

she's a member of the UK Equine Podiatry Association

http://www.epauk.org/

Saffy's first outing ... Heather Moffett clinic at Smeltings Farm

Daft o'clock. Got up before the birds to get my taxi through to Sheffield. Still asleep as I hadn't got in from the clinic the night before until midnight.

7.30am. It's p'ing it down with rain and the herd is right at the top of our 45 acre field! Needless to say Saffy wasn't overly excited about being brought in early!

Got her back to the yard and she obviously knew that SOMETHING was going on because she wouldn't eat her feed.

She was cleaned up as best we could, plaited her mane and forelock, travel boots on, rug on, tail guard on and ready to go.

8.15am. Lorry arrives with a ramp that is akin to scaling Mount Everest. This was no 'edge them slowly up the ramp' job, this was total commitment. Not the best kind of ramp for a first load!

8.20am. Tack etc is on the lorry so time to get Saff on. She stands at the bottom of the ramp obviously rather confused as to what she needed to do. She's not naughty but isn't quite sure about it. You want me to climb up THERE? ? ? ? ? ?

8.45am. She decides to be a big brave girl, stands on her back legs and plonks her front feet 3/4 the way up the ramp. Back legs follow and she's on

9.20am. Arrive at Smeltings. She's travelled well and apart from being a bit sweaty, rubbing her tail guard off and poohing her pants she's fine. She walked off the lorry rather nicely rather than leaping or running :) Damian took her into her stable where she neighed at her new friends and tucked into her haynet.

After she'd had a while to pee and eat we tacked her up and took her into the lunge pen. I stayed outside as there were 2 horses in the school next to the pen and adding a strange place into the equation we expected an explosion.

Apart from neighing at the new horses she was a complete darling. She even lowered her head and offered long and low. What a good girl :)

10am. Show time She came in and had a look around but was remarkably calm. She took a bit longer to settle but wasn't particularly spooked by the indoor school (we only have an outdoor), the cows in the field outside, the gelding in the field outside or the row of faces looking at her in the arena.

We don't have fencing up to the sides of the school at home so she did jump a bit when she wiped her rider (I still can't ride after my accident) up the side of the boards!

Once she'd settled she went quite nicely. She was a bit unsteady in her head and had a few short 'episodes' but she wasn't particularly 'naughty' overall.

I was really proud at how well behaved she was for her first time out, I really expected fireworks and spooks galore.

I had promised everyone that she would be 'entertaining' at the very least and she didn't disappoint! She literally EXPLODED into canter and once she found that this caused people to laugh she demonstrated it again ... several times!

Once actually in canter though she was a good girl :)

I'm so proud off my little moo cow.It was a good lesson and our rider did really well to sit so well on what is, effectively, an unexploded bomb.

I just wish that Heather was nearer but at least we've got two excellent EE teachers in the vicinity.

Heather did comment on her ability to transform from Dobbin to Dressage pone :)

We're hoping that it will work to our advantage once we start competing by lulling the others into a false sense of security and the difference between resting Saff and working Saff being SO noticeable that she'll really stand out.

I really enjoyed the clinic (and the demo the evening before). Heather is such a good teacher and so positive even when she's giving corrections. I'd definitely do it again, it was a great experience.

Having done herself proud it was time for her to go home. She wanted to stay at Smeltings but they needed the stable.

Loading up to go home she did the same thing again and stood at the bottom of the ramp just looking at it. 25 minutes later (that's obviously the magic number!) she jumped on again and went home. Bless her, she was SUCH a good girl, we were very proud of how she behaved.

It was her first time out and must have been stressful because of breaking her routine (getting her in early), loading, travelling, new place, new horses, new work place, lots of people watching. But she was a little star, we couldn't have asked more from her at all.

I have to say a HUGE thank you to Heather who was absolutely fantastic and made everyone feel more positive about themselves and really improved the horse and rider by the end of the session.

Vicky and Damian from Smeltings were brilliant. They were fantastic hosts and must have put a lot of work into setting it all up.

Thank you also to everyone at Smeltings who was involved in getting it all together. Smeltings is a beautiful place and a great venue as it was so calm and friendly.It was a great couple of days and very inspiring. Probably the best demo that I've been to in a long, long time.

Reading the book on Spanish Walk

The Jambettes are coming on so we have started to combine the Jambette with the walk.

With my very inexpert help we tried stringing a few together (Jambette ... walk a few steps Jambette .... etc) on the one leg.

She's really funny in that she sometimes gets 'stuck' on the first one and gets brain freeze.

Once she got herself sorted she did a decent jambette on her 'bad' leg ... step .... and then only went and OFFERED jambette on the other leg (that we weren't asking for!).

She managed a few steps before going 'arrrggghh' and then getting stuck again.

Because she was offering it we started to ask for it :)

The little monkey actually had several decent tries at the SW!!!

Ok, they were only short but we were absolutely gobsmacked. It's like she was saying 'for goodness sake, I've read the book and seen the DVD, why on earth would I want to do it the baby way? Catch up will you already'

More photos ....

Getting a better extension on the Jambette

Canter, Saffy's most favourite gait EVER!

The Importance of Magnesium Supplementation

We've just discovered how important it is to keep Saff on the Mg.


Last weeks 'excitement' at canter was one thing but this Saturday she just completely disconnected under saddle, was spooky and generally had brain fry, it was pointless trying to school her as she was just a spook on legs.


She bashed poor Emma in the lip with her head doing one of her 'levade spins' (too lazy to spin properly) and generally regressed to pre Mg days.


Hopefully trying to get her back onto the Mg consistently will help ... fingers crossed! The awful thing was that she was a complete angel on Thursday but just couldn't cope on Saturday :o

It doesn't always go to plan though .....

Her canter transition can be a bit 'whoopee'

And she doesn't like the 'scary' end of the school

Training the jambette/Spanish Walk

We use clicker training for all of her work which makes it a lot easier to teach new stuff :)

We started off with jambette and then progressed it to Spanish Walk (but more of that later :) ).

More pics and something to test your observational skills!

Now for the test of your observational skills ... why are her ears back in this photo?

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

My car accident

Which, unfortunately, has put paid to me riding for a while :(

Was on my way home from the yard today when a drunk driver pulled out in front of me. I hit him side on and completely totalled my car :(

They didn't let me see it (I couldn't anyway) but the front of the car was pushed right back to the dashboard. They wanted to take the top off but I wouldn't let them (that car is ... was ... my baby) though they did have to cut my clothes off which didn't cause quite as much trauma!

Anyway, I was immediately put in a collar, on a back slab with my head completely immobilised and carted off to the hospital. Thankfully it's not half as major as it first seemed (apart from my poor car) but I'm extensively battered and bruised, had to have my knees patched up and may have broken ribs. They didn't want to x-ray me because I already work in x-rays and even if they confirm it they won't do anything about it.

I can't walk at the moment because it's too painful on my knees and my chest is very sore and I'm pretty convinced that my ribs are bust. My neck and back are very painful too :(

My brother, mum & niece came to the scene to pick up the shopping (one of my other worries!) and to see where they'd taken me. The car was so bad that my mum broke down on the spot but as my brother pointed out to her I was very lucky to have come out of it by looking at the damage.

Am back home now feeling very sore, can't walk, can't laugh or breathe deeply and feel very dizzy a lot of the time. Apart from that I'm fine :)