Monday 10 June 2013

Sunshine Saturday



We had a lovely sunny Saturday - however it rained all day yesterday & has started today in much the same wet vein, fingers crossed it dries out so that I can have a spin this evening! :)

She spotted me
I arrived at the stable shortly after 1pm as I'd spoken to the blacksmith in the morning and he hoped to pop by about 4pm to put the shoe back on Nancy. So I want to have them both in, give Nancy hay and ride Kika while the main arena was quiet. It all went to plan, bar the arrival of the farrier - but whatevs!
Food?
Popped Nancy in an empty stable and gave her a healthy helping of hay as I am still encouraging her to regain the weight lost in the poor weather the week before last. Tied Kika outside to groom her in the sunshine, thankfully mud-bath that was their field was after drying out and she was no longer a muck monster.

As it was such a glorious day & I was kind of time-wasting I decided to plait up Kika's mane so that her neck might'nt get too sweaty as I had it in mind that we were going to really work our canter and knew how stuffy the indoor would be with the lovely heat outside.



I needed to ride indoor so that i could use the full wall of mirrors to my advantage and it was too hot for me to ride outside with my fair skin I'd have been scorched! Lobster red is not a good look for me & it is very bad for my skin, so lathered in suncream I managed to avoid getting burnt. *Happy Days*
I'm not sure she was overly enamoured with my plaiting skills - check out her tongue








With the lovely sunshine & heat I didn't want the little darling over-heating or dehydrating so I had a bucket of water to allow her some drinking while I groomed & before we set to work.

I finally managed to snap a photo of her trick of sticking out her tongue and holding the water in her mouth before swallowing. That made me silly-ly happy!





Please excuse slightly dirty nose

Snooze-face



















I had such a great spin and got to work on all the things I had hoped to tackle with the arena & all the mirrors to myself - it was wonderful!
We warmed up with lovely smooth trot with circles, figures of eight & w/t/h transitions - lots of transitions. :-)
We then moved up to canter work, where I really concentrated on gathering her together on a circle and keeping it closed down the longside before circling again at the other end of the arena and asking her to really open her canter back up the longside on each rein. We then did some c/t transitions before working on some shoulder-in in the walk - followed by some loose flowy trot to stretch out again. Back up to canter work where I worked on smaller circles, really trying to concentrate on correctly turning with my outside rein/inside leg, before going back to trot and letting her really stretch as she'd earned it.
As we were both quite warm, we went for a stroll around the property on a loose rein - this would not have been possible 12 months ago. We have really made so much progress, it is such a joy to ride her now! *dance*

After a shower and some feeding she & Nancy were turned back out, I had hoped to bring them back in for the farrier as he was due to pass in the early evening, but unfortunately I didn't hear from him so still no shoe for Nancy...but to be honest i don't think she's too upset over not being worked and getting stuffed with food while Kika gets ridden, :p








I know I am biased, but I think Nancy is filling out again nicely after her weight-loss at the end of May!
















Kika then decided that a roll was definitely needed! ;-)













We had hoped to go for a hack in the woods on Sunday, however rain put a stop to that. Supposed to dry up this evening so hoping to get a spin in on Kika tonight and if I can contact the farrier, I'm hoping to get an answer as to when he can put the shoe back on Nancy.
Fingers crossed!

10 comments:

  1. You have such beautiful horses and the plait is lovely. I really need to start practicing my braiding skills before the next show!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aw thanks Amanda! *hugs*
      I'm such a sucker and love plaiting - always have for some weird reason...human hair & horse hair, but I think i only use dto like french braiding human hair to get practice in for plaiting tails *blush*

      Delete
  2. Nancy looks fabulous! I wish my horse would hurry up and fill out that nicely!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks hun, but she was'nt looking so good last night, we have rain Saturday evening (thunder) & all day Sunday...I'm now beginning to think I might have a fair weather horse! I had to remind her last night that she's Irish and supposed to be used to the rain!
      Silly Sod!

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. She gets plenty practice snoozing - so I guess she has perfected giving it face! LOL!

      Delete
  4. There is some shine of these girls, wow ! I think they both look fab. And what a great report on your spin with Miss Kika, congratulations ! All that hard work is paying off, well done :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aw thanks K, hopefully I can keep them healthy!
      I had such a fun spin on Saturday and another one last night, it is so much fun riding Kika now - it has been a long time in coming. There was a good period where riding her was a real chore when my confidence was at rock bottom - but I am so glad I had the friends and encouragement to keep me plugging away.
      It has totally been worth it! :D

      Delete
  5. Starting to sound like Kentucky with all the rain!

    Great pics of the girls

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pretty unusual for us at this time of year, :(
      Although what is usual these days, lol - check me out getting all philosophical!

      Delete

I love to hear from readers, thank you for your comment :-)