Schooling Saturday

Just sitting down to watch Live coverage of the Puissance from the RDS on the TV, wish I was there but this is the next best thing. Daniel Blumen was fantastically fun last year, hopefully this year will be another brilliant renewal.

Nancy prior to our spin

I rode both girls today, started with Nancy who behaved beautifully again. She really is such a good girl when we remember that she was ridden only on Tuesday this week!

Sunbathing post spin

A yard friend that I don't get to ride with often said she looked really good which certainly warmed the cockles of my heart. We kept it simple with w/t/c transitions, circles, serpentines and some halts although not too many.

Sweaty Kika after work - she was such a great girl

Kika was next and put in a lovely effort, she really buckled down and worked for me - which she hadn't done our last two spins. I did put my stirrups back up a whole after having let them down last Sunday - i felt like it made a difference and maybe it's all in my head and that in itself made the difference as so much of riding is a mental game.

Awkward pose from Kika as she sunbathed

We also changed things slightly in that K didn't spend an hour on the walker first as another horse has been added to their field so i no longer have to bring both girls in when I ride.
We also worked on a spiralling circle on each rein during our warm up which helped to get her mind engaged and her bending. Then the usual w/t/c circles, serpentines and halts too. I did try to focus on our walk and help her work at it some she gets kind of squirrely when walking rather than striding out. Baby steps and we will hopefully get there ☺
K kept me sniggering as we worked on our trot work She made weird puffing sounds last week while we worked, today she was making hilarious growling sounds. I think I'll ride her without the flash attachment tomorrow just in case that is having a detrimental effect on her breathing *worried*

Grazing together

Both girls got a hose after work and some chill out time in the sunshine before they went back outside and i continued the paddock maintenance for almost 2 hours and cleared all the poop from their paddock.

Nasty flies annoying my poor Nancy. We're due a heavy rain fall
so i don't like leaving their fly masks on if they are going to get wet
as i worry about chaffing/rubbing.

Tomorrow I shall tackle the other side which I haven't managed to finish clearing since they swapped sides. The upside to the recent rain is that growth is coming on well on that side of the field so when I do swap them back over they won't go hungry and i won't have to decide whether or not to sort out some hay for them. I hate giving them hay during the summer as they are already round enough!

I left the three of them napping together

Hopefully we'll play around with some polework tomorrow.