Saturday 3 March 2012

Ball Busting

Filmed three mini-video clips this morning after leaving herself out - here is the "ball" she plays with and doesn't let her field buddy, poor long suffering O get a look in! We put hay out and there is a 15kg Original Horselyx tub (LINK) to distract O from Kika's selfishness. Although I have no doubt that when Kika empties her ball of carrots she shoos O out of the way of her next prefered amusement for her belly - my horse really is a demanding diva!
I wonder what this says about me, seeing as animals are supposedly reflections of their owners!

I call it a "ball" but it is more like a hexagon or some such shape, there is one hole in it into which we feed loads of chopped up carrot pieces and some muesli which all come out of the ball when the hole faces downwards...probably doesn't make much sense when described...hence the videos, 

Without further ado, here we go:
(posted in the order in which they wer taken)



And lastly to better show off her footballing skills:


Sorry if quality is poorly, all have been taken on my phone!

Also an update, I haven't actually ridden her since my 10mins in saddle on Sunday and she hasn't been ridden since L's 15mins on Tuesday...long story not-so-short I lunged her in the pessoa in the outdoor arena under lights on wednesday evening, she was very good - a few spooks at lord knows what, but almost to be expected with the Windbag that she can be. She still worked very well and for about 25-30mins; as she can only do a max of 20 minutes under saddle so i tried to give her a bit more work on the lunge.
I had planned to ride on Thursday, but as there is a Yard Show being run on Sunday (jumping and dressage events are taking place - no Kika & I are not attempting to compete, maybe next year all going well!) so I was hoping to try and make that day a rest day and as Mrs B recommended that she only be worked two consecutive days under saddle I was going to do so Friday and Saturday.
So Thursday Kika ended up spending an hour in the walker - to change things up a bit as it's been a few weeks since she had a spin in there, then myself and L loose lunged Kika and O and they had a blast for themselves. Thankfully no messing, so neither of them tripped or undid the work Mrs B did in massaging (O got some accupuncture) last friday (24th of Feb) just nice walk, trot cantering use of the whole arena...and thankfully with the two of them egging each other on it meant very little encouragement (read:chasing) from the humans.

Friday again I had planned to ride, but as I am borrowing the dressage saddle from another yard friend I prefer to ask permission to borrow it (it is polite after all) and perhaps left it a littel late as I was also due to attend a concert last night (it was really good fun!) so when i didn't have an answer to my request after 30mins and time was running out i decided to lunge her just in the cavesson and no other gear or poles on the ground - i cannot tell you the last time i lunged her 'naked' without poles on the ground!
So we worked on our transitions in the lungeing arena with the terrifying door which of couse after an initial introduction she didn't pay a blind bit of attention to!
I particularly concentrated on getting her to lengthen her stride in trot while slowing the tempo "steady stretching strides" was my mantra. I also had her spiral closer to me and the spiral back out while maintaining the tempo - not perfect but balanced which helped her bend and stretch also. To top it off i got some nice canter transtitions from her steady trot, up and down which i was very happy with as she can sometimes do an awful long "running" trot where she speeds up and looks almost like a pacer without the buggy - not what I am looking for from her!
But we got there in the end and i was super happy with her. Fingers crossed all goes to plan this evening with my second spin in the dressage saddle. I'll lunge her in it for 5-10mins and then ride for 10-15mins under The Guru's supervision and report back tomorrow...maybe with photos from the show, or else perhaps just more of Miss Kika as I have been fielding requests for more photos of late.

Hopefully the videos go someway to satiating the apetite for Kika pictures!

Thanks for reading what has turned into another not so short update!

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