It was so much fun seeing everybody all dressed up and pretty.

Everybody did so well. I reckon that Jay and his Skye gave us all the biggest surprise, superstars in the making and only their first show. We should all have to step it up to keep up with these two

Mici and I had a good show, much to my surprise. We did much better than before and he was a tiny bit more in control than before. All the hard work we have been putting in on the ground has really payed off. We didn’t do too great in Prelim 1, but to my major surprise, we placed 3rd in Prelim 2. Makes me proud. And more than that, I was so pleased that in this second test, we cantred on his bad rein, a full circle and up the long side, without a change, more than anything else, this was te biggest acheivement of the day for me. I was beaming after that.

Jumping was a bit hectic, but only one buck and most importantly, I didn’t fall off He didn’t have a clear round, but he still did great in the 50cm’s, and no bucking. Once again, big acheivement. Also no refusals, I was so happy.

He even had his moment in the spotlight with doing the pole on the ground on his neck strap, although he did refuse and dumped his rider, luckily no injuries and they finished strong, with some help from a halter. With that I think Mici impressed everybody there. He does like showing off.

All and all, we had a great show. Congratulations to everybody. Even though you may not have placed or anything like that, I am sure every single one of us had our own personal victories, even if it is to just stay on and not falling off

So, enough of my blabber, time to start training towards our next big goal or acheivement.

Happy riding

As we are all gearing up and getting excited for the show on Sunday. I thought to just put a few funny and weird things about the horses. This is just a fun thing and I would love to hear everybodies comments on what their horses do as this just adds to the mystique around these smart and astonishing createrures we take on as companions and best friends.

As most of you know, I have become like a foster mother to Mici or Dynamic. Over the past few months we have been working together I have gotten to know this big teddy bear better and better.

By spending time with him I have discovered many things about him and myself and the bond we have come to share in the few months we have been working together.

Mici is a big fan of his grass. You can tae his food and water away, just as long as he has his teff net filled with grass he is the happiest horse alive. Thus whenever you come by the yard and he his in his stable, chances are that he has his head stuck in the corner with a mouth full off grass.

He knows his name and my voice very well, so once I arive, I just call him and the head will pop up for a few seconds, grass haning out the mouth and then he carries on eating. This is all good, until we need to tack up. Once the bit is in the mouth, no more grass is allowed. Intially, this was a bit of a struggle, but he has gotten more use to it now, although he still sometimes get that naughty boy look in his I and tries for a bite when he thinks that I am not looking and when I catch him out he seems very upset with himself that he got caught.

Now that we have gotten used to leaving the grass alone once the reins are over the neck, his latest trick has started. Even before I can get the bit in, we have to drink water and not just a sip of water, no, no. We drink as if it’s the last water we will ever get. So I have to stand there patiently and wait for him to finish before I can fully start tacking up. This water drinking session takes so long that I can make 3 plaits at the bottom of his main, so my hands don’t get caught in at and even do his forelock, which ticlkles his face. Once he finally decides he is done, we can carry on the tacking up. Since this started what usually took me 10 minutes to do has now been extended to a 20 minute excersise.

After riding, we sometimes go for a walk on the halter to cool down. As most of the other horses at the yard love their roll in the sand arena, I decided to take him for a treat one day and let him have a roll, but he blankly refused to roll. This is the day I descovered that he would much rather happily follow me around, without a lead rein, than have a roll in the sand. Since then when it is quiet at the yard, we go out and have some fun without the lead rein on his halter. We can walk trot and canter like that and even do little jumps, but all on condition that I do it as well. If i try to cheat and just go past the up right, he will follow me very deligently. This excersise is fun, but also tiring for me. He only goes as fast as I go, so if I go to slow while he is cantering, he will slow down to a trot as he never likes being too far away from me. When I am running, he canters behind me and almost nudges me in the back with his head, just to let me know he is there.

I know we all have fun stories about the weird and wonderful things our horses do and I cannot wait to read some of your stories.

See everyone at the show on Sunday.

HAppy Riding

Seeing as Pam had a nice break, the stables were so quiet as all lessons were cancelled and even Emma left early as it started raining and with the kids that have lesson with her, it really cannot work.

Mici and I worked through the rain as it was very light and we had already started. We had a wobbly start as I was pushing Mici to sort himself out in the canter as this getting disunited thing has to come to an end. We finished on a high note as we did 3 reasonably sized circles on his bad rein without any of that.

Then we just walked around a bit as we waited for Jay and Sky to join us. Spent some time walking Mici on a long rein while Jay and Sky had their warm up. Then I hopped off and Mici and I watched as Jay and Sky. Then we walked with them, Mici on my left and Sky, with Jay on top of him on my right. Sky was so good he slowed his walk down considerably to stick with us.

Then I popped Mici back in his stable and further watched Jay. He had such a nice ride with a few really nice canters on both reins. Lots of Happiness for these two as they have both come so far in such a short space of time.

After a lot of carrot stretches, I took Mici into the empty sand arena to teach him how to bow down. This will probably take a while and I’ll need a lot of carrots before we get this. Seeing as he didn’t want to roll while on the lead rein, I took it off to see what he would do. To my surprise, nothing at all, but follow me with his nose on my back.

We walked around in the sand like this for a while, over the trotting poles and the tiny little jump. Took it a bit further by picking up the pace. Mici happily just trotted behind me. So we went over the line of trotting poles and this proved a breeze. The poles was were far enough apart to canter them, so next round, I picked up the pace again, so I was sprinting over the poles and Mici cantering along happily. This was so much fun and he was so in tune with me that as soon as he realized he is to far ahead of me, he slows down from a canter to a trot and when I’m to far in front he speeds up again. He did this all by himself with no extra encouragement needed, as I was all out of carrots by this time  

This bond that we can create with the horses in our lives is something that cannot be explained in words. But this was most definately the highlight of my weekend.

I have been wanting to blog about this for a while, but I have just been too busy.

On Sunday 11 September, I had a make up lesson on Mici and Emma and I arranged to go on a bit of an outride after. The idea was to take it one step at a time as I have never seen Mici on an outride, but I know how spooky he is in the yard and I have seen his craziness outside when the big killer Great Danes bark at him.

So I had a nice lesson with Pam, and after Mici cooled off for a few minutes while Emma tacked up and Kirsten was having a lesson on Diago. Once the four of us, Emma, Sox, Mici and I were ready to leave, Kirsten decided she would like to join us. This was very good for me as I know that both Sox and Diago are pretty chilled on outrides, so they could help me to keep Mici in check.

As we went out the gate, I started getting worried, because Mici immediately tried to bite Sox and Kick Diago, this is so unlike him. I decided to let it slide and just breathe and not stress, as I didn’t want my nervousness to carry over to Mici as I reckon he was nervous enough for the both of us

So we set off. Luckily the killer Great Danes were nowhere to be seen. Mici was pretty excited and marched so forward that even Sox had trouble keeping up. I opted to park Mici half next to, half behind Sox, just to keep him in check. As we left the residential area, Mici calmed down completely and turned into such an angel, all that was missing was his halo.

We ended up going for a long ride. More than an hour. It was so much fun, had Mici on a long rein and even took my feet out the stirrups for a while. He was even a example to Sox and Diago at times as he is not scared of any funny looking things in the veld, even big black umbrellas.

On the way back, he had a few very tiny spooks, but nothing unexpected. The one was at a big killer attack dog barking at him, but he calmed down in 2 seconds once he realized that Sox and Diago were not even interested. The other was at the Dirt bikes. This I expected, as I heard them to and I know that the one thing Mici hates most is a motorbike. He had a small little freak, this means jumping sideways and carry on walking, not even trying to run off or buck or anything like that. When the sounds didn’t go away immediately, I just talked him through it and he listened to my voice instead of the bikes and we were fine. So much so that we even trotted a few times to catch up to Sox marching home and just as we got back to the yard we trotted past Sox to get to the gate first and open it for Sox and Diago to come in.

I am so proud of Mici. Thank you Emma, Sox, Kirsten and Diago for coming along and putting up with the unknown on the outride. It was so much fun and I hope we can do it again soon.

I feel that this was such a big achievement in Mici and my life. I do not know what he was like before he came to GAS or even before I started riding him. But from the scars on his back and the major sensitivity to his ears, it is pretty evident that he has not had the best of start to life and to people riding him. But thanks to a wonderful owner and yard that he found in Stef and GAS, he loves his work and being given attention and love and just having people around. This is once again proof of how patients, effort and most important of all LOVE can change the world and everything in it.

Hi all.

As promised, an update on Mici and my progress.

On Tuesday, I got to the yard and what a typical August day. It was windy as hell and I know most horses including Mici don’t cope very well with wind that crazy. But I dared it and we were fine, not even half a spook. So while Diane and Polo walked around with us, we worked on both our fitness by trotting and trotting and trotting some more. We did spirals and leg yields and circles and we trotted and trotted. Once Diane decided they had enough of the wind, we started with some canter work. He was an angel, he coped so well with the wind, I am so proud of that boy. So after a whole hours ride, I had enough and my legs were tired and by this time at least Mici had started to sweat, a bit. He is getting so fit now and he loves working.

So on Wednesday, I only got to the yard at 7, so obviously no riding, but learnt a big deal in the theory lesson and also went to say hi to my boy. He is so cute, he knows his name and my voice by now and is very happy to wake up to come say hallo to me.

On thursday I got to the yard and Pam had just finished giving a lesson. As I was getting out my car I was wondering who is this horse in the arena, and to my surprise it was Mici. DD decided he was not in the mood for work, so he had a stiff leg, so to continue the lesson, Pam decided to use Mici. I am so proud of him. In the almost 2 months I have been working with him, he has come so far and it makes me and him very happy to work more.

Even though he had a 30 min lesson, I know him and he could easily carry on going for another hour, but first we went to the grass arena, just on the halter to cool down a bit and run around and play. We have great fun jumping up and down the bank en running through the dyke. He can even have a nice canter while I run next to him, this is always great fun. We jumped over a little upright as well, which is always fun. Then we just calmed down and chatted to Jay and Sky. Sky was so chilled while Mici and I were running around like lunatics. We settled in and Mici ate some grass, this helped sky to relax and soon after he joined in and was also hapilly chomping away at the grass. We went back to his stable tacked up and started our ride. We did a lot of canter work and he went so well. He is coming along so beautifully, but now I need to work on myself. I seem to be doing something wonrg when we canter in the right rein as he keeps on changing leg in the circle. I think that I try to compensate for his leaning in and put too much weiht on the outside that he thinks we are changing direction. Pam said that he did not do that in the lesson earlier, so it has to be something I am doing.

We did trotting poles and a lot of transition work and leg yields. Then I decided we have never done canter poles together, so we should try it and just change things up. This was almost a repeat of the time he bucked down the long side of the arena as he half leaped half bucked over each pole while we cantered. I think we probably looked like we were practising for the circus. We were ok though and he came back and we finished our ride. Hard work.

Till next time. Happy riding everyone.