I Loooooove a weekend of pottering with ponies. You know one of those weekends where you’re just at the yard and you get to go on a nice ride, not worry about being anywhere at any particular time, just bimbling along, enjoying myself.
Estrid did two things for the first time this weekend. She went on a hack away from home by herself. She’s done lots of little trips out where I’ve led her, or out with Tissy and Fluffy but this was the first time she’s gone out on a training ride in the lorry all by herself.
She really is a marvel, I think we’re getting there on the shaky nervousness, everytime seems to be a little bit better. But when I’m actually on board she’s keen, forward thinking and responsive. This ride did make me realise that I have been a little lax on my mounting technique, I have allowed her to walk off when I’m on a few times (I know, rod for my own back) and on this hack, one of my lights came off so I had to jump off to get it, I then had to get on from lower down than I normally would and because I hadn’t checked my girth (I know, stupid mistake again) the saddle slipped a little bit and she was already walking before I had a chance to rectify it. It was all fine, I just tipped the saddle back to the middle as she was walking, but there were many factors that may not have been fine in that scenario, so we’re going to do a few sessions of going back to basics and working on mounting again, which is never a bad thing in my opinion.
Estrid also had her first clip, we’ve been practicing with the clippers for a few weeks now, just turning them on and whizzing them around her every time she comes in. She’s also stood next to Tissy being clipped so I was pretty confident she’d be ok. She is very sensitive about noise so I gave her lots of breaks and she stood still 80% of the time, she was getting a little antsy towards the end so it’s not as neat as I would like but for a first time she did great.
Beth Endurance 