HiHo HiHo it's Back to Work We Go ;)

Both me and William have had a little holiday over Christmas, and considering how rubbish the weather has been it turned out to not be a bad idea!

Whilst I've been off in the sunshine, he's been living out in the field along with lots of snow!

Understandably the field shelter has become the number one place to be, well actually hiding round the back of it with all the hay is more preferred haha.

So time came to start working again and he was more than happy to oblige.

We started with some lunge work and he was flying along really happily, and he was very responsive which was brilliant :)

Then today I jumped aboard, no fuss, and we even did some canter!

He was going along really nicely, relaxed and listening to my aids, so we thought why not have a try and see his response. So I asked and he broke into canter and bounded off down the long side :)

He seemed really pleased with himself and we ended up doing some more round a 20 metre circle in the center of the arena.

It's all about him gaining confidence, moving forward with some power, and realising that he can do it. He is such a good little boy and he is now so chilled out about life I feel like I can trust him so much, so now we are going to be able to start making some more progress.

Once the weather improves and everything is no longer frozen we will begin our wanders around the land with Nanny Mayfly again and start seeing the world outside the arena :)

I will also start cantering him on the lunge to help him build up more strength and balance too.

ahhh he is such a sweetie! :D

One New Horse and One New Start

Although I have not done much with William over the last few months a lot has happened and little William has now become big William, he has filled out, changed shape and is now ready to come back into proper work again!

I gave him a few session on the lunge to get him used to the idea of working again, luckily he was perfectly well behaved. He is so much happier to tick along on the lunge now, transitions and all :)

So yesterday came the day to get back in the saddle!
He was surprisingly well behaved, even when the dog jumped out of the trees his reaction was reasonably chilled, which is promising.

Overall things couldn't of gone better, let the walking sessions begin :)

Today we introduced some poles one the ground and he was happily picking his feet up over them, turning round them and practicing halt transitions. He is rather well co-ordinated for a three year old and our straight lines aren't far off.

I have also been doing lots of ground work with him, he is a little star at it, and it should be very beneficial.

All I can hope is that he will always be this willing to learn :)

First Canter :)

He has been progressing really well over the last couple of weeks, with trot work, poles and bending. I am very pleased with him and it is obvious that he is enjoying himself as he is always excited to come in and do his little bit of fun work :) He chases Flea away as he wants to be the one who comes in and gets all the attention!

Although this day he was obviously mid sleeep when I went to get him in :D poor boy, wouldn't stop yawning!

He has had the physio come down and give him some wonderful massages too, which he thoroughly enjoys and it means he should be using all his body properly now that work is beginning :)

So today I decided that he was ready to try some canter and he was pretty good for his first time at it with a person riding him. He went down the long side on each rein, and we left it their as he is probably not quite balanced enough for cornering and seeing as it was his first time I didn't want to push him.
However, we will work on it, as once summer is over his work load will decrease due to me having less time being back at school, so I would like to have him at a reasonably good stage before he has the winter break :)

I will say though that I think he is the slowest race horse in the world, bless him, moves in slow motion at times I am sure of it! haaa. I can't complain though as I most definitely prefer that then for him to be some crazy machine!

The Arena Work Begins Here

Here's a picture of the first time I got on him;



I'll try get some more now as we have started doing some proper arena work :)


He is walking over poles, around blocks, and today was the first day of trotting with me riding him!
He was a little resistant to trot but I picked up a schooling whip, (brave I know) which he actually didn't care about, and with a little tap on the shoulder he broke into trot and did a few strides down the long side in quite a controlled and balanced manner :)

I will work on trot work and getting him to respond to my leg more but he is doing so amazingly well!
He is Mr. Chill now, such a different horse to when we got him..maybe a little too chilled at times, ahahaa.
He is very responsive when it comes to turning and stopping, all that long reining has come to good use and surprisingly he can manage to walk in a reasonably straight line!

I think the arena has become a safe zone, somewhere where he feels confident and is happy to do anything. Some more long reining around the fields and hopefully he will start to feel safe everywhere, and will make him a bit more spook proof.

He's Broken in :D

Today was the day, the day that I finally got on William. After 5 months of living out, becoming a horse, lunging, longreining, de-spooking and generally building up trust we've got there.

He was such a star!

He didn't care, he was chilled and by the end of it I was walking round on him on the lunge practacing some basic aids. He is very good at listening to me so now I'll have to start backing up my voice with aids from my leg too but I think it will all come quite quickly seeing as he is soo chilled. He is a new chilllaxed hosss! lol.

He was so sweet to be on, feels like a big pony. Suprisingly he held himself quite nicely when I got on him as well as I was expecting him to be very up and stiff but instead he was stretching his back out and was extremely relaxed, which was perfect :)

I love him so much, and he has proved to me that he has really buitl up trust in me :)

I am going away until thursday so he will just be lunged to keep up his stamina and give his brain a rest after that big step up, so he is prepared for some more riding when I return!

I can't wait to start to see his true potential and what he is going to be like, it's all so exciting, haha.

Video Footage of Lunging the Beast

Ok so I have been meaning to get some video footage of William for a long time, and here it is :)

He is doing amazingly well on the lunge at the moment, and this was taken on the day that I introduced a pole on the ground and asked him to trot over it, which was a first time thing for him and he attacked it successfully :D



I know the lunge line is a little droopy at times, bad me! lol


Doesn't he look all grown up in his tack, and he has grown in height more too. He is now 15.2 and a bit hands at withers and 16.1hh at his bum...what an interesting horse he is. but with the saddle on he becomes a lot bigger. Luckily it does look like his withers are starting to come through now so hopefully the end product will be a normal looking horse! Bless him.

Oh and I know I look like an idiot with the hat on and all but it had just finished thunderstorming, haha.

The New Horse - Rehabilitated.

Look at these two sweet identical beasts!

William has become a complete new horse compared with when we got him. It has been amazing working with him and seeing him progress he has learn his job and knows what we want from him. He has become brave and loving and has grown a tremendous amount of trust in me.

He has had just over a weeks holiday, so today I lunged him and I was ready to accept for him to not be perfect, however he was more than perfect :) I lunged him in a saddle and with side reins..he looked like a proper horse, rounded as well instead of being in the horrible hollow shape. He is starting to manage to hold himself in a rounded shape in trot as well now :)

Towards the end of the session I pulled down the stirrups so they could bang around on his sides. He didn't take any notice of them in both walk a trot, which was very pleasing to see.

The decision is that I will be riding him by the end of July, how exciting :)

I took him down to the yard and got the steps out so I could lean my weight over the saddle and pat around his sides where my legs will be in time to come. I stood up above him and made lots of movements, but no matter what I did he didn't even bat an eyelid. Hopefully this means that he will be a good boy when I come to get on him!

Also he ate an apple for the first time today! That is a major break-through and show that he is now basically fully rehabilitated into a super new horse :) I must say that he made interesting work when eating the apple, he used to just sniff then and walk a way but today he attempted to eat it. It took him a while to work out the best way to do so. pahaa, bless him :o)