August 29, 2010

Haybales

Up to Masterton today to visit Mum (our 2 cars parked beside each other below) and managed to easily fit 4 bales of hay in the car with quite a bit of room to spare! A bit different to last season when I was transporting hay with the bmw!
Torrential rain most of the day today - feels like someone is playing this huge joke on me. As soon as I get motivated again and the horses are all going well, we have another week of unrelenting rain.

August 28, 2010

Arena Fun!

Grays road today already has some grids set up, so I took advantage of that and did some practise without reins (as I have been meaning to do - but so far have only been doing on the flat and not over fences). Xev was great and mostly we could corner effectively without the reins too - not perfect, but pretty good. I do notice through the grid I am looking down in the pictures though! There is always more and more things to fix when it comes to riding!
Xev was jumping really well, good big bold jumps and no chipping in which was really great to see. I must say, she looked a bit untrusting when I took the saddle off though...
And then got straight back on her to do a little bit of bareback riding. I do a bit of flatwork on her - still have a bit of trouble with the downward transitions at times (if I get them wrong then her wither can be very unforgiving!)
But today was my first time jumping her without a saddle. I am a huge wimp, so kept her to the very low fences (not quite ready to hit a 1m class like with silly Neo!). I found I got a bit loose in my position on landing a couple of times. Perhaps that is because I'm not really looking where I'm going?
Was a fun ride though - good to get out somewhere and do a bit of jumping. And while it was pouring down half the time, the other half was quite sunny and nice. Thanks to Swifty for coming out to take the pictures, and thanks to Xev for loading and travelling perfectly for my first towing experience.

Tow Car

On Friday I picked up my new (second-hand, but new to me!) tow car. I took a bus up to Palmerston North, which actually wasn't too bad, however it does make me wonder what we did in the days before mobile internet? As I swear I spent half the journey reading forums.
The car is an '04 Nissan patrol... seems nice enough so far - so pretty pleased with my purchase. Today I borrowed a float from HorsePark and had my first ever attempt at towing. It really wasn't bad at all. Reversing will take some practise, but I got everywhere I needed to and most of my 3-point turns I managed in just the one swing... just a couple that I mucked up and needed to go back and forth a few extra times!
Piccies! First the car with borrow float (and Xev inside!) and then the fuel readings. I'm told they can be expensive cars to run, but I didn't think it's been too bad so far. I took the pic a little earlier, but when I finished driving for today & parked up I'd done over 200kms and was still easily above halfway on the main tank. Be interesting to see how much it changes if I am towing more than 1 horse or a larger float.
In order to make my 'learn to drive' trip worthwhile, I took Xev up to Grays road and did a bit of jumping (not heaps.. she is still a bit fluffy so gets very sweaty!). Will pop up some photos of that later on.

August 27, 2010

Bouncy bouncy

'Jumped' Gem bareback last night, okay only over poles on the ground - but great fun (not sure I am keen to try any higher as she is very bouncy with that active back-end of hers). Neo and Xev both in serious work now, and me wishing I had clipped them! Sweaty monsters!


At least Gem is clipped!

August 22, 2010

Winter Update

It's been so long since I've done an update... or really had much to update about. The horses are in mud, winter is not very inspiring. But I have sold the truck, and bought a tow vehicle and currently float shopping. I've also got a new job which has (so far) been really great - really giving my brain a bit of a workout.
Today I went up to Masterton to catch up with Mum, and see the new properties up there, and see her new horse. Daniel is a western-trained horse who belongs to a friend - he's going to spend the season with mum doing sporthorse things.
Mum has been getting him fit and working on his schooling and he's actually coming along really nicely. Starting to get his canter strikeoffs sorted out and carry himself a little better.
After Mum had warmed him up, I hopped on him to see what he was like. I cheated and wore spurs, so it was a little easier for me to keep him focused.
He is actually a real doll to ride - just goes around very laid back. And he tries quite hard to please, just sometimes doesn't quite know what you're asking yet.
Also caught up with Shante and Zak while I was over there (Zak has grown again!). Came home, with a trailer of lucerne hay, and spent some time with Neo, Gem & Xev. They are all feeling quite good - and there is the first little bit of spring grass coming through too, which is great news. May mean it's time to buy a bag of equilibrium blue though!
Great sunshine this weekend. I hope there is more where that came from, as it's exactly what I needed to give my motivation a kick up the butt.

August 01, 2010

Panorama

Headed up to Masterton today for a bit of an outing - took the horses for a ride at Panorama equestrian. Gem was full of bounce, but as always, happy to be out and about.
She pulled a little bit as I was warming up around the jumps, but was very steady once we started jumping. After jumping I did some stretches/exercises to help with my stuffed shoulder (while Gem tootled around) and then did some bareback schooling on her. She was great bareback and I will absolutely do more work on her that way - I was able to get her to listen to my seat and legs far more effectively.
Mum had a ride on Neo. She's ridden him twice before - but mostly just on a long rein/hacking. So today she had a chance to get to know him a bit better.
After a warmup they popped over a few crossbars and through a double and it went really well. Neo was pretty well behaved, and Mum did very well giving him his head and being soft on his mouth.
Xev had her tootsies attended to and then we got out the sidesaddle. I am still not really sure if I'm 'doing it right' - but hopefully some of my sidesaddle buddies will be able to give me some tips and critique.
Mum did question as to why I wasn't smiling... I couldn't! Too busy concentrating! I haven't attempted another canter yet, so we just stuck to a trot.
Xev has been so lovely about it, and not phased at all by the sidesaddle (or the hilarious antics while I try to either climb on or release myself and slither off).
After riding the weather wasn't looking flash, so no photos of Daniel (Mum's new ride), Shante, Coco, or Zak! But I did manage to grab some feed & hay (thanks Mum) and get back over the Rimutaka hill before it got closed due to high winds. It was 2.5 hours from Masterton central, back to the paddock at Makara - which I didn't think was bad especially considering the weather was pretty awful for most of the drive.