Week of horsing around

It's been a busy week trying to balance work and horse commitments.  I am going on holiday next week, so have been trying to get in the saddle as much as possible before I have to take a nearly two-week break (I am clearly going through a very keen phase it seems)! Not sure if Rainbow is that happy about this 'extreme' riding but I have tried to keep it interesting by mainly doing hacking out with her and friends and not spend much time indoors. The weather, rather surprisingly, has been quite good, so that has definitely been  an incentive for getting out as well... As I have said before, you never know when the heavens will open yet again for months on end, so enjoying it while it lasts.

Monday we went out for a morning hack with our friends J and O. Tuesday I managed to get us on the very popular 6pm group lesson. We did rider 'gymnastics' on the lesson; riding without stirrups doing various legs stretches and bending backwards and forwards. It was rather fun and luckily the horses were very phlegmatic because of the warm and muggy evening, so could happily give them long rein and concentrate on the stretches. After stretching we also walked and trotted around without stirrups. It's really funny how after about 20 mins riding without stirrups one's leg really stretches and when you put the stirrups back on, they feel so short! Even when my stirrups were on what I call 'the long school setting', after a while without stirrups I could have lengthened them two or three holes and wouldn't have even noticed.

Wednesday we went out with our fairly new friends Sarah and Sampson. Sampson used to be my loan horse, so I know him quite well. Rainbow and Sampson really seem to get on well and I feel I have struck up a lovely friendship with Sarah too. We have a lot of fun going out and seem to be on the same wavelength.

Sarah and Sampson

The hack on Wednesday went well – we didn't do a very long one as we only set off around 6pm. Both Rainbow and Sampson weren't very forward going, but it didn't matter too much. We had a couple of spooks from Rainbow when we came across some sheep in an unexpected place and when some children threw a ball in the bushes we were walking past. 

Cheeky Sampson having some takeaway!

Thursday we had another flatwork lesson and it went really well. Practised some leg yielding, just to keep it interesting for both of us. And also did some canter transitions from leg yielding in trot.

What is known as the 'selfie'.

Sarah and I had earmarked Friday for a longer hack and we set off in the afternoon when Sarah arrived from work. The weather had been a bit changeable earlier in the day but settled into quite a nice warm evening. We headed up towards the Churn. When we got up the big hill after the village, Sarah noticed that Sampson didn't feel quite normal. He was feeling lame in trot. I stopped as I'd been motoring on with Rainbow ahead of Sarah and Sampson. And he didn't look quite right. We had a little discussion on how bad he was and if we should turn back, because in walk he didn't show signs of lameness. Decidedly the right thing to do was to turn back and Sarah hopped off Sampson to lead him home. Rainbow was a good girl happily turned around although I could tell she was quite keen to go continue the hack. So we ambled back with Sarah and Sampson.  While Sarah led Sampson, I felt like a mounted police officer giving Sarah and Sampson a police escort. Bit of a shame that our special Friday hack was cut short, but obviously our horses' welfare is the paramount, so it wouldn't have been fair to make Sampson go on. 

Back at the yard Sampson was assessed and he didn't seem too bad. His shoeing is probably a bit overdue, so hopefully the limp will be fixed by new shoes this week. Fingers crossed!

Overall it's been a good week of riding. Today I gave Rainbow a day off and I think she was rather pleased: when I released her in the field she buck-galloped off towards her friends in the distance, cantering past them and did a victory lap around the back bit of the field. Just a little bit happy. :)