Posts from — August 2011

Pam was attending to one of the horses who was not feeling well, So Charlene came along and gave me my lesson

Man oh man can you say Drill sergeant? We did loads and loads of trot work, from 10m circles, to Loops through X, 3 loop serpentine’s, 4 loop serpentine’s and you name it, then not to forget turns on the forehand. Charlene had me really working hard and getting Lily to move forward with my seat, not nagging her with my leg (it’s a HORRIBLE habit I have picked up) and I think we were getting it nicely eventually. But I must say Lily had me working hard as I did not have my crop, and she takes FULL advantage of that. But I was really impressed with how she performed

The canter work was really nice as well, especially on our bad rein (left rein), the transition was phenominal I could really feel her arch her back and spring me into the canter She really has one of the most comfortable canters, it’s like a couch that moves

After that we did some frame work and Filly is really getting it, I think once my leg relaxes and I break the aids down more she will find it a lot easier But she was softening beautifully in the walk and even gave us quite a few steps in the trot Very impressed

I just want to say a big THANK YOU to Charlene for teaching the lesson, it was really fun :) I was exhausted though when I got off, and Lily was sweating for a change! Looking forward to the rides the rest of the week

Happy riding everyone!

HEEE HAAA!

The Glen Austin Stables website has a RSS feed that you can subscribe to in order to keep up to date with the latest content. In the images below, you can see how to find the RSS feed and how it might show in your RSS feed reader, in this case, google reader.

It was good to start lessons again but the time spent with Diago out of lessons was also awesome.  Today all we did was walk and he did not ‘dip’ his hips like last weekend.  Also from the shadows on the ground I could see his tail was up a bit better too.

So we did the spirals in and out with Pam and I tried to practice my 3 loop serpentine not so much that as trying to keep Diago straight.

Still it was a fun morning.

After the lesson I was standing chatting to jay and rubbing Diago totally oblivious to what he was doing with his feet when he stepped on my foot.  I have been hoping it wouldn’t happen especially after seeing the damage to Anel’s foot – but it did.  All I could do was say eina, eina, eina, eina (naturally I must have looked an idiot LOL).  Diago realised his foot wasn’t quite right so moved it and like jay said he gave my feet wide berth  Diago is such a good soul!!!!!!!   Of course from my stupidity comes some learning and next time I will be watching where I put my feet too LOL. (on that note all I can say thank goodness it wasn’t Teddy’s foot )

Luckily there’s no bruising.

I also learnt what a carrot stretch is – amazing how the horses muscles can be seen quite well when its done. Pam showed me how to get Diago to stretch and its something I should be doing after each lesson.  Diago will be in carrot heaven!!! but as Pam says – he has to work for it.

I almost think that Diaogo wanted to hot foot it around the arena today.  there were times when it seemed he wanted to trot but that fizzled down to a lazy walk… then again there was a spurt of energy and so it went like that until we did the lesson and after the lesson while walking around it seemed he wanted to take off again.   when Diago is ready he will be the ever graceful animal and I will be the “Penelope” trotter once more LOL

…. and you know what???? … I look forward to it

Before the GAS website was redone I kept a blog on another webpage – so for those of you with spare time on your hands who might want to go back right to the beginning of our journey – go to this link.

As most of you know I didn’t get to ride in the show due to my toe episode – I wanted to share this stunning picture of Kristen on Flag in the 30/40cm jumping though… not quite sure which one it was…

Unfortunately she crossed her tracks in the 40cm (she wasn’t aware of that rule) but if it wasn’t for that, mr. Teddy would have had a jump off on his hands – pity

They did very well though and he cleared everything beautifully.