15 December 2008

Adult Ride Mini Course - SJing with Ana Rattray 25/26 November

Its great being part of the Papatoetoe Adult Ride, you end up getting heaps of opportunities to ride with different instructors. For the mini course you could chose to either 2 days of dressage, SJ or cross country. I picked to do Show Jumping with Ana Rattray (Cheleken Stud)

Tuesday turned up & started warming up. Flynn felt a little tight & nappy, however worked out of it quite nicely, although stayed a little argumentative about somethings, however completely perked up once the jumps got higher. Ana said he was a lovely jumper with a super front end, but our flat work needs more work, we need to be more adjustable through our paces. She also suggested that maybe a martingale would help as there were times where I'd ask him to wait & he'd disagree & charge on with his head in the air instead, only bringing it down 1 stride out from the jump. Not ideal at all. He was also over the top spooky at the jumps.

After the lesson I had a chat to a friend of mine & started putting 2 & 2 together. I do wonder if the oats are not having the good effect that I was hoping? Since starting them, all I had gained was a horse that was not any more energetic, he was just more spooky instead... Figured maybe it was time for a vet visit to do some bloods, so booked the vet in for Thursday. Made sure Flynn had no oats for dinner that night!

Wednesday Flynn was a lot better, warmed up nicely & actually stayed polite through the jumping. Ana commented that he was the total opposite to the night before, was there possibly something going on with him? I told her about the oats theory & that I was getting the vet out the next day for blood tests etc. Got taught a few more great exercises to try at home to have the horse really listening and am also going to get a few more lessons off Ana in the new year as she's keen to come up & teach at PC every couple of weeks if I can get a group together. So proud that she likes my pony :D :D

No comments: