Quick Update

Will hopefully keep this brief & I have a few rewarding photos in case it gets waffly!

I played with Kika's mane last night, it's a lot shorter then Miss Nancy's & it was rubbed slightly by rugs at the base of her neck so too short to include - but plait still came out pretty IMO :)

All went well with lunging Nancy with the pessoa on Tuesday evening, we worked in the outdoor for the first time since she arrived. She was a bit more on edge than she normally would have been and didn't settle as well as she has done in the indoors, but she was, as always, a very good girl.
As I was still a little under the weather I didn't get my spin in on Kika on Tuesday evening, but I'm sure she didn't mind the extra grazing time if her belly last night was anything to go by - she thoroughly enjoyed the extra day off!

As always - please forgive my poor paint skills!

Kika and I had a jumping lesson last night, above is my poor paint attempt at re-creating the fences we jumped, we didn't necessarily jump them in the numbered order from above, but I needed a reference point. ;-)
We warmed up over the cross at 1 with a ground pole before it so we came in at trot and cantered away from it twice off each rein (the ground pole changed sides as necessary).

Our first course was navigated quite successfully by myself & Kika, if I do say so myself. We managed to remember where we were going and not have to circle in order to get our line to the correct fence - baby step improvements for us!
We came up over 1, cantered on to 2 and cantered down through the pole/ low cross bounce combination at 3,we cantered around 4 and came up over 7 before turning left handed to come down over 5 then right-handed up over 6 to finish.
The comments from the Guru after round 1 were for me to remember to sit up & steady her more between fences, not to let her build up steam, particularly going into 7, shorten my reins & as always keep my heels down.

Apologies it's a bit dark as we were indoors without lights on

For the next course the ground pole then moved to the other side of 1, which we jumped down before turning left to come up through the line 4 & 2, continued left and came down over 5, turned right-handed and up over 7, left hand turn down through the combination at 3 over 4 and continuing left up over 6 on a bending line to get the turn back down over 2 & 4 to finish.

We were going well first time till we came down too quickly through the combination and I realised we were supposed to jump 4 as i sailed smoothly passed it - not actually a refusal as I had never presented the mare to the fence. So we came up again through 7, down through the combination at 3, over 4 and on around to 6, but i missed the Guru telling me to take 6 on an arc/circle to get the turn down through 2 and 4 so I had to come again - twice more until i got my shizz together and rode the line right.

All in all i finished up a very happy camper with both myself & Miss Kika, i wasn't sure it would go so well as when we were first warming up she was getting herself quite hett up up not really wanting to listen - but I managed to keep a lid on the exuberance...note to self less days off for Miss Kika, ;-)
But in saying that she was still very good, and listened in her own way - at no stage did i feel unsafe or her or out of my depth...12 months ago that would not have been the case.

This may not seem like it, but it is an I LOVE my PONY post!

I'll leave ye with pretty sunset from last night - colour a little lost in photo, but sky was bright pink! I'm not a pink person but it was beautiful as the Guru & I walked her dogs quickly last night before heading home.