Happy New Year

Rainbow spent a peaceful Christmas in the field with friends. She also spent a peaceful New Year in the field. Lucky horse. 

I managed to get in some riding too and it's been rather nice to have lots of time to potter around in the yard. Although sometimes I am quite horrified how I can spend around 4 hours a day there and not even notice the time passing... 

But, we have learnt something new over the past few weeks, too: turning on the forehand! She turns well to the right (by which I mean her face facing left and the backside moving to the right). She learnt it almost instantly. First she struggled a bit with turning to the left (facing right and backside moving leftwards), but after a bit of more explicit persuasion, and not letting her back or walk, she began to grasp that quickly, too. As a result, I have learnt that my horse is a very quick learner and eager to please: When I praised her after a success – and let her walk on as a reward – then, a moment later, when I asked her to halt again and do the harder left-turn, pressing with my right leg, she began to turn into my leg, offering me the easier right turn. Bless, eager to please but not quite right. Today we did a bit more forehand turn and again, and eager to please, this time she began turning even when I only asked her to halt squarely. So, in the end we had to 're-practise' simple halting with her for a few times at the end of the session, to stop her offering me forehand turns every time!

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The only niggly thing has been my back pain, which has been bothering me quite a few weeks now and thus made riding a bit unpleasant. I am also having to work quite hard with Rainbow to keep her mind on the task, to stop any silly 'spookiness'. She's been a lot better, though, but I am having to ride her with purpose to keep her that way. 

I went to see an osteopath this morning. I have muscle pains and aches here and there, which I can mainly identify having been caused by mucking out and perhaps riding, too. Although, riding is the lesser evil – as long as I don't fall off! My osteopath has suggested that I'd lay off mucking out for a couple of weeks to give my back a break... I need to find out how costly it will be to keep R on 'full livery' for a bit. I did muck her out today and definitely could feel the muscles hurting the osteopath had manipulated this morning, so I think it might be sensible to have a little break. I will still ride and groom R but not do the heavy wheelbarrowing... Will see.