Welcome Willough!

Ok, I swear, I have no idea how it happened but it seems like I accidentally purchased a second pony!

She is just wonderful!

I won't bore you with the story of how I found her, but needless to say I kinda feel it was meant to be. She's a gorgeous Warmblood x TB mare, 18 years old and trained to PSG, she has the dance moves and is an amazing schoolmistress. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that yet again I brought a horse without riding it. Don't hate me! I have a gut feeling about these things and kinda go with it although I would never recommend this buying philosophy to anyone- it works for me... ok!

She is teaching me so much. She has the most wonderfully trained and easiest changes but needs to be ridden properly through to get the best out of her and get her going uphill. I love riding her, she makes me smile every ride and challenges me in really good ways. I am so honored that her previous owner Janet trusted me to take care of her. What a lovely horse she is.

I have attached some video of like our second ride together, it is very imperfect from my part, much to improve but she is obviously wonderful. I was pretty impressed with my first change although I was basically just lucky she did it properly... if you watch for long enough note the second change... I rode it and then sat like a ragdoll not guarding my lead so she threw in a few more haha! Lesson learned Willough! Sorry!

Just a disclaimer. I always struggle to share videos here. All I see is imperfections in my riding, my position all sorts of stuff. Everything in me tells me not to open myself up to that, to edit, to not share  but that isn't my blog. The ups and downs of the dressage journey should be shared and if I was giving a friend advice I would tell them to go for it. It's our imperfections that make us human and so many of us are working damn hard to be better riders and we all hide a little. So here they are... enjoy the videos- warts and all.

Gemma xoxo

Trot Video

Canter Video

Willough with her (prev) Mum Janet- looking fancy!




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

News!

Image
While the world is obsessing over Corona Virus I spent the day obsessing about my horses... well a little about Corona Virus but mostly about ponies... Axel was first up and we spent some time with him doing lameness evaluations first. We really didn't see anything here, however remembering how he was before the stifle operation we didn't really see lameness then either. The next thing I wanted to do was take some X-Rays of the stifle to check how the screw was seated and if there was any problems with it. We took a few films and it all looked good down there, of course the arthritis hasn't magically gone, but it looks just how it should. So the choice was made to get him back under saddle and walking then review again before we start trot work. So of course, I saddled up and hopped on my slightly wobbly, weak pony. He is such a doll, and of course behaved perfectly. So happy to be back on board. Hacking fitness begins now! So, Miss Willough. A friend kindly walked her ...
Read more

What have I done

Image
Oops, so I may have decided that two weeks of consistent riding is more than enough to enter our first show. I know, absolute idiot right! But, we are pitching ourselves at Training Level, which is really just walk, trot and canter. We can totally do a lovely test together and as he has this wonderful temperament I feel like we need to get out there and see what we have. It could of course, be a total crapshoot as we aren't exactly starting low key. We simply haven't been able to get a schooling show in before now so are heading straight off to the Colorado Horse Park and a USDF show. Sara and I have no idea how he is going to be. If he is going to cope ok or be really anxious. He's a dude, he tries his best always, and is generally very sensible about things, however he is also very sensitive and is not a deadhead old donkey sort. My barn friend Emma with her lovely horse Ira will head up to the Horse Park with Axel and I on the Friday, we can take some time to prep th...
Read more

Suppleness: SI > Ren > LY > Tra

Image
Nope, not a mathmatic equation... this was my lessons with Sara this week. We focused a lot on suppleness and we worked a fantastic exercise for this with both Axel and Willough (that Sara learnt from  Portuguese  trainer Alfredo Hernandez). On the long side of the arena start in shoulder in until it feels good, change the bend to renvers. swing into leg yield (on the rail) then change the bend to travers. Sara had me stay in the positioning until the responsiveness and positioning felt good and then switch to the next position, The short side is always a break for the horse. Once it felt good on both reins in walk we moved upto trot and worked the same exercise as above. I absolutely loved this for suppling the horse and getting them quick and responsive to your aids, It also showed up any weird stuff I do with my body to get the lateral work, for example when I am on the left rein in left bending I sit right too much which doesn't help the horse, so this is something I need ...
Read more