I just remembered I have a blog! I may as well have forgotten about it, even when I log in EVERY day to read the latest on FHOTD or Cakewrecks I still manage to let it slip by that I have one of my own.
In the past month the sentence "write a blog about Grace and Becks" has been clumsily thrown around the house, mostly commonly from my mouth, but it seems it has still be untouched up until now. Very lazy of us. I promise we don't forget about our horses the way we forget about our blog :|.
So moving on to the more important stuff!
Since the last post we have ridden grace a few times, equip with saddle and bridle. She is a quick learner. Naturally we used leg aids automatically without thinking, this proved to be quite a good move as she learnt within the first proper ride what leg on means and how it works in conduction with what's going on in her mouth. Lisa and I were very proud of her.
Since that first legit ride we have ridden her a total of about 4 or 5 times. Lisa has had a total of 2 kick-offs and me nil (well that's probably because I am the one with no guts, and have only ridden her once). I wouldn't call them a fall, since Lisa landed on her feet both times (she is pretty switched on when it comes to Grace, no sneaky manoeuvres there), but she was kicked off. The first time just because we stretched our expectations to far and asked for a trot, so Grace wanted to know "What the hell is bouncing on my back! Buck!", the second time because she was super fresh and spunky that day and decided she wanted to test Lisa...it didn't work, she still got back on.
So all in all we are very proud of our little grace when it come to her first few rides, she listens, she pays attention, she is yet to freak out (minus the trotting thing) and she is learning very fast!
We have given the ridding thing a rest for the past couple of weeks as Grace has some kind of lumps (about 6 all up, all in a row ,3 on each side) just sitting before her nipples. The lumps are squishy, not hard, they are all the same size and haven't grown or shrunk and she gets annoyed when you touch them, not as though they hurt but as though they are irritating her. We are hoping it is just a problem with the glands or some kind of mild hormone condition that can be fixed, please don't hesitate to inform me if you have had a similar condition with your horse. We will know what they are on Friday, our vet is coming out to float the pony's teeth and check her up. Fingers crossed! Watch this space.
Lunging is a success, FINALLY, it took a while for her to perfect it, but she has it, she even canters almost a full circle without too much encouragement. And we don't need to use a lunge whip anymore! SUPER happy about that, there's nothing worse then a lazy horse when it comes to lunging. My first pony Anira used to HATE lunging, she wouldn't go faster then a slow trot no matter how much you forced her too, she just wouldn't. She got away with it because she was so sweet and old, woops!
Leading = success also. We take Grace on rides with us when we go out in the back 1000 acre paddock now, leading or ponying, depending on how lazy we feel. She likes it because it is interesting to her, seeing all the cows, foxes and machines (they do some kind of turf farming or something in the back paddock, so there is always machines doing something out there) keeps her interested and distracted from being a young bratty horse.
I'm glad to say that she will finally trot beside me on the lead now also. Thumbs up for improving ground manners, there's no point in a well behaved horse under saddle if its ground manners suck!
So in conclusion I am super proud of my little growing filly! She is doing well, very well :).
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