Queens BDay - Mijla

Mijla is a new arrival. She's a 7yo TB mare (by Traditionally) who has done a couple of low level shows, but hasn't been in work for around 18 months. Majestic dropped her off to me on Friday, so I had a bareback ride on her Friday & Saturday while waiting for some rainscald to clear up. Today was our first day with the saddle! She doesn't actually look very thrilled at the prospect:



But she behaved really well - she hasn't been spooky or uptight at any point - even with other horses coming to use the arena, which Neo gets quite excited about.



Mijla is very kind and I think once I get some heating food into her and some more meat on her bones she will actually have quite a nice trot - she seems to remember the basics of her schooling and doesn't fizz when we get our signals mixed up.



Finding the canter button took me a while - and because she's quite unfit I didn't want to sit on her and have her trying to balance both of us, but once we got into canter she sorted herself out nicely.



And the next few canter transitions were fine too. We only did about 10 minutes of riding, didn't want to make her too sore and tired.



Don't currently have a dressage saddle, but have bought a square pad for under my jumping saddle, just in case we decide to pop along to some winter dressage (I guess there must be some coming up).