Riding round Home

Not much news - just been riding at home & the forest recently. No competitions for us until next year so just taken a back step to schooling & not going as hard out as we were.

Had an awesome ride in the forest with Chrissy on Sunday - lots of nice long trots & we jumped the logs etc. Cobs had a great time & even out-walked Blarney who has the longest stride ever!

Photos from round home:

Lesson with Hayden 10th December

Have only ridden twice since our last lesson so was expecting Cobs to be a little fresh but surprisingly he wasn't...in fact he was so dead that we had to work on him going more forward....who would have thought LOL!

We are trying a different way of me riding him & that seems to be working really well. Have got some more lessons booked early January so at least that gives me a chance to practice what we have been doing & hopefully we will be improving by the time Hayden sees us again.

The lesson was videoed so the photos are crap quality:

Cobs has a new rider...

Here is my friends daughter Bella "riding" Cobs LOL! She thought it was great & squealed with delight the whole time she was on him..appears Cobs doesn't mind kids!

Lesson with Hayden 3rd December

Had a lesson with Hayden tonight which was great timing after my riding on the weekend.

Things felt a lot better today so hopefully we are both back on track. Cobs tried really hard again so was stoked with him.

My ODE this weekend has been cancelled so not sure what we will do now!!

Kumeu 2-Day Event 29-30th November

Our first ODE loomed up very quickly (a bit too quickly for my liking) and just to set the mood for the weekend I was number one on....so Saturday morning started at 4.30. Yuck. However we got an awesome park under the tree and Jo came & parked next to us which was awesome.

Cobs warmed up really well - I hopped on at 7.30 and just walked him round for a while then went back to the float & got changed etc. This seems to work well with him.

Our test was quite nice - even got two 8's for our canters which in itself is an achievement as this is our worst pace. Was stoked that he produced a nice sane test. We were rewarded with a nice green rosette for our trouble so that made getting up early worthwhile LOL!

Entering the Arena:



Canter Left:



Canter Right:



Halt:




Then we went to do our SJ. I just couldn't ride to freakin save myself. Poor Cobs. He tried so hard to help me out. He should have stopped at least three times due to my lack of riding but he kept on going for me. Such a sweet boy. We got 7 time faults due to me having to trot to gather my thoughts a few times - so pissed at myself but whats done is done & I will make sure that I don't let him down next time.

Fence 3:



Part A:



Finally get it together for the last fence:




Sunday we got there early again to get a park under the trees (and next to Jo again, thanks Jo :)). By the time I hopped on to warm up for the XC I was close to passing out due to the heat. I have never felt so sick before from just being so hot.


We did not have a good round at all. Not sure if it was my lack of concentration due to the heat or me giving him a fright from the day before but he wasn't his normal bowling self which was a real shame. We ended up having three stops round the course which in Pony Club means elimination...shame as its not really a true reflection but never mind. We did the sunken road awesome this year round so was pleased with that. When we came round to do the water he completely lost his back end so I am sure he will be feeling that today.


We have another ODE this weekend so I will be interested to see how he goes confidence wise. I know that I have to ride him a bit more forward than what we did on Sunday so I am sure we will more fun this weekend....fingers crossed :)

Corner:



Ramp:



Hill Jump:



Dropping into water:

Lesson with Karley 27th November

I was very lucky that Karley was coming down to Auckland during the week so booked a dressage lesson with her to go through the test for the 2-day event on the weekend.

Cobs worked really nicely & was very happy with him. We had a few movements to work on that I wasn't doing correctly so it worked in great that Karley was there to point them out.

Not many photos as the batteries were flat:

Think I need to pull his mane...

Cobs poking his tongue out in disgust :)

Lesson with Hayden 19th November

Today we worked on getting our canter more forward & getting the strides right in doubles etc. I have a habit of burying Cobs into the first fence in a double and we then put in too many strides. We started off with a pole & small cross - Cobs got a bit worried with what we were trying to achieve but once he got the hang of it we were away :)

We did lots of exercises to lengthen his canter stride etc. On our last round Hayden told me to jump a vertical which to me looked HUGE (ended up being 1.05m so I was right LOL). Cobs unfortunately knocked the rail down twice but on the third attempt we got it - great way to finish the lesson!

Photos!

Small Vertical:

First part of double:

And again:

Part B:

Oxer Line:

Vertical after Oxer:

1.05m :)

Greenhithe Show-X Day

Off we went to Greenhithe Pony Club for their Show-X day reasonably early as I was told that they didn't have many entries in the classes before mine....well that was the wrong move & didn't end up riding until after 2...such a bloody long day and by the time I did go to ride Cobs was completely over it.

So how they ran the event was six show jumps then onto six cross-country jumps then back in the ring to do the show jumps again. The show jumping was quite twisty and the lines to the jumps wasn't the greatest which was a shame as we really need a nice flowing course to give us the confidence we need. We just ended up doing the 85cm round.

Anyway we had one stop in the first SJ round - wasn't a very nice jump and Cobs just stopped at it going WTF?? So back round we came & he cleared it by a million miles (photo below). Went out to do the x-country and Cobs was wiggling everywhere not understanding what the hell was going on LOL! Got a growling into the first fence and then stopped dead going through a gateway...almost got me off the little snot LOL! Rest of the course he did really well - so pleased with him. Did the SJ number four perfect this time so we had a great time. Shame the day took so long as he was really quite over the whole thing.

No idea if I got anywhere - I just wanted to get home & with one stop and us just taking it easy round the course I doubt we would have been in the running.

First part of double first SJ round:

Scary number 4 after our stop:

Last fence first round (love this photo):

XC fence Number 2:

XC Fence 3 - picnic table:



Drop into water:

Cantering towards finish:

SJ Number 4 not scary this time round:

Lesson with Karley 15th November

This week has not been a successful week with riding...pulled shoes & chiro appointment hasn't given me anytime at all to get some work into him. Shame as now we are a week behind where I wanted to be but these things can't be helped.

This time around I had a jumping lesson with Karley as we are going jumping tomorrow so wanted to get a few more jumps under our belt. I was stoked that she thinks we have improved since we last jumped with her...I feel our canter is a lot better going into & between fences so it was great to get that confirmed. Thanks Karley :)

Photos:

Warming Up:

Small Vertical:

First part of double...swear he counts the poles LOL:

Getting more confident with the double:

Small Oxer:

95cm Vertical (not big to most people but is to me!)

Lesson with Karley 8th November

Karley came down for lessons today so I booked a dressage one in with her...we haven't had one for ages so I was really looking forward to it. It was also my first lesson in the dressage saddle so I was keen to see how we were going to go in it.

Cobs was quite good - took a while to relax in his warm up which was annoying as he has been doing so well in schooling. I think because he has been going nicely I put too much pressure on ourselves to prove to Karley that we have been practicing etc.

Someone had set up an arena so we went & worked in there and worked on straightness and then did some leg yeilding in the trot & canter. Our trot work ended up quite nice & we even got some lengthened strides out of him which was good. Our right canter was great and then we just got started on the left canter & he pulled a shoe so that was the end of that! We had been going for more than an hour anyway & both quite shattered LOL!

Have now got lots to work on yet again & she is back next Saturday so fingers crossed there is a big improvement :)

Warming up:



Trot Work Right:



Trot work Left:



Lengthening Stride down 3/4 line:



And Again: