Huapai Practice XC Day

Took Cobs down to Huapai today for a practice XC day - however by the time I got there the sheep had been let through to the paddock that had the most jumps in and the take off/landing on all jumps was pretty much trashed.

We went and had a play in the water which was fun & a total breeze for him which is good. Did a few XC jumps however my position leaves a lot to be desired so they were all deleted!

Cobs was a pain in the arse to warm up again so really not sure what is going on. He is normally quite tense but he is just acting like he is really, really unhappy and then give him half an hour and he is fine. Not really sure what to do about it apart from taking him out everywhere to see if he gets better. If it continues I will get the vet out to take bloods or something as its just weird.

Few photos from today:

Woodhill Sands Show Hunter

Woodhill had a nice casual Show Hunter day on today so I organised a day out with Jo and her young pony Isis - was great as hardly see Jo now she does lots of SJ :)

Day started badly - for whatever reason Cobs got completely beside himself and just wouldn't settle. Tried to work him through it but kept spooking so I just flagged warming up & went into the warm up jumping ring. He wouldn't go into canter and was generally just being a shit.

I jumped him a few times and he wasn't happy so came out the ring & undid my girth & moved my saddle a bit - went back into the warm up ring & he was fine. ??? Strange.

I did a 70 round just to see if he would get over himself - he jumped well but leapt round everywhere in between LOL! His 80 round was better and his 85 was even better however I stuffed up the 2nd to last fence so he got really deep and pissy. Gutted as it was such a nice ride up until that jump.

He jumped well so happy with that. Who knows what was going on before that - don't want a repeat of it anytime soon thanks!

70cm round:





80cm round:







85cm round:

Twilight Dressage 22nd October

Every year Woodhill Sands have a twlight dressage series which is AWESOME for putting all the practice into place and also getting us out every few weeks.

Last night was the first one in the series so I asked Liz to come down & warm us up. It was good as we did lots of transitions etc where as when I warm up by myself I tend to niggle and make things a whole lot worse than they need to be. We went through a few movements of the tests we had to do which was good also. Unfortunately Cobs is a little smart so soon cottoned onto some of the movements so tried to do them in the tests. Brat!

Our first test was 2.3 which was the harder of the two tests we had to do. Not a great test! He was really spooky and didn't listen throughout most of the test. When he was listening he got really good marks so that is encouraging.

Our second test was 2.1 & he was much more settled thank god! Still had a few spooks but no-where near as bad as the first one. He kind of gave up in it though and a few movements that we normally get really good marks in we didn't which irritated me. But I couldn't get after him like I normally would as he was in a rather explosive mood so who knows what would have happened!

We ended up placing 1st & 1st= in the tests - however the number of people in them was three & two so the placings don't really count!

I was happy with him for our first dressage outing in a few months. Was great to be out there doing it again. Liz stayed behind to watch the tests so now we all know what we have to work on next lesson!!

Warming Up:





Tests:

Jumping Lesson

First jumping lesson in over a month - he wasn't as bad as I expected actually!

We warmed up over some canter poles adjusting our strides which was a great exercise - we actually nailed that pretty quickly so that was good.

As he was fresh we started with a small cross on a canter circle and just bored him to tears basically until he stopped trying to be a brat after the fence. That took some time LOL! I think in the end tiredness won :)

We then went on and did a few courses getting me to concentrate on just having one canter - I tend to gun him the last few strides which then gets him all rarked up when we land. So that was good. Where I thought we had horrible spots he actually jumped really nicely so just have to sit there & let it happen (yes I know, continuing theme). Also he is jumping & landing left so I have to really make sure I keep him more to the right than normal.

We then did a two stride double with a filler for the second jump - Cobs decided he didn't much like that jump so ducked out to the left (like normal). So Mr Whippy came out for a visit - needless to say I think he may think again about the whole left running out option :) It was what he needed and I was happy that it happened with Jaime there so I know how to ride him into fences I think he will back off from.

We didn't really do much as the both of us are terribly unfit - the weather has been crap and we haven't been able to ride at the showgrounds for various reasons. Fingers crossed the weather is on the improve so we can get back into the swing of things.





This horrible jump is the result of me gunning him at it :

Dressage Lessons 8th October

Todays lesson was HARD! Was great though - three days later I am writing this & I am still sore!

Did heaps & heaps of canter today which is just what we needed to do. Got our transitions up & down pretty damn good. Practiced medium canter and giving the reins over X which we have to do in the Novice tests. Did lots of counter canter etc. All in all was great canter work! He was a bit dead on the left rein but think thats because my leg is flapping in the breeze so he just takes the mickey!

Then we did lots of sitting trot - my abs ache! I used to do only sitting trot back in the days so was really good to practice it again. Cobs has a habit of sucking back when I go into sitting so we just did loads of work at keeping him forward etc.

Pretty basic stuff but I am stoked with him. He tried so hard - all I ask for!

Dressage Lesson 1st October

Back up to see Liz today - unfortunately I have only ridden once since my last lesson so Cobs was rather fresh....didn't help with the wind blowing us over LOL!

Today we did HEAPS of transitions - mainly halt/trot/halt to try and stop him from stepping back to square himself up. He got it a few times so that was great.

We worked mainly in the trot today doing shoulder ins, leg yields, sitting trot, 5 metre circles in each corner, medium trot across the short diagonal then back into a 5 metre circle in the corner. Was really good just to keep his mind active & me thinking ahead.

We didn't do any canter work - there wasn't much point as he was quite spooky & we had more than enough to work on etc.

I really enjoyed todays lesson - although we had a few spooks here & there on a whole he worked pretty damn well considering we still haven't practiced anything.

Hope to catch up with Liz again before the twilight dressage comps in the middle of October.