Sunshine

The weather has been just fantastic the past few days. Horses are in light cotton sheets and loving it. So nice to come home and be able to enjoy being out with the horses and not getting battered by the wind and rain (though I have had to invest in insect repellant!).

Have been doing some lunging exercises with Tilly to work on her technique over fences. Starting to achieve some visible improvements and looking forward to adding some more complex grids for her to see if I can really get her to stretch out a bit more and hopefully (if all goes to plan) set her up to do a small showhunter class somewhere. She's got such a lovely consistent canter.

Pippa and Coco and enjoying some time off on good grass at the neighbours (and hiding up in the forest when it rains or gets too sunny for them - very cute).

Have even been enthusiastic enough to put some time into Neo's flatwork too - though I noticed when I switched him back to the french link that he wasn't all that impressed. I've been riding him in a rubber (happymouth) mouthpiece lately, which he likes. So I might have to get a regular mullen happymouth snaffle for him - as I can't use the dutch gag for dressage (and don't really want or need to use it for the jumping now that we're not doing indoor venues anymore - so no scary echos to run away from!).

Xev is entered in dressage classes at Feilding A&P, so that should be something a bit different - haven't done registered dressage for a good few months now. She is fit as anything too - doing heaps of canter sets on the hills and barely getting a sweat on her. I'd previously been doing her hillwork as mainly trot sets, but the canter work has just made a huge difference to her fitness.

Shante is coming along just great. She even took a carrot from me tonight. I lunged her out in a big paddock and she was laid back - even did a trot and canter (though the canter was pretty motorbike and unbalanced). Then I hopped on her and walked her from the paddock back to her yard all without drama and mostly just needed to use my voice a little to encourage her to move forward. She certainly tries hard to please.

I hope the good weather hangs around for a bit!