The scent of a horse

Pic. Talking horses and soaking up the sun - two of life's greatest things!

One of my clients had to cancel his 3 hours training due to some emergency so I ended up starting work at 11.30am. That meant a nice amount of sleep, super empty trains and a life of luxury ;) The day continued to roll on great: my first little job was to school a 14.1hh mad ginger thing which I like very much and will try to hop on her more often. 

Then Training Day with Kiran, my regular rider who is getting stronger and improving from session to session. 

As she does both riding & stable management her first challenge was to bath the mad ginger thing who was in definite need of a wash after the schooling! 

It was quite a giggle as bathing a fidgeting horse isn't exactly the same as giving a wash to your dog, the latter being the only animal bathing experience Kiran has had so far. She concluded she should have brought a wet suit. 

Either way, pony ended up looking rather sleek so mission accomplished.  

After filling our stomachs with some lunch the hard work started. As with all the beginner riders I always try to establish their basic position and increase body awareness as I don't think you can truly progress without these two elements in place. 

The theme for today was to continue to strengthen the rider's lower leg and work on effectiveness of the driving aids. To make the work more interesting we spent the entire day out of the arena - riding on the grass over slightly undulated terrain does wonders to riders' awareness of balance. 

I also upped the amount of trotting we did on a hack to further challenge Kiran's riding fitness.

Pic. above: My hacking horse and I bemused by the amount of bluebells 

Pic.above: Kiran on a hack. Don't you just love those flowers?? The mare thought the flowers were delicious! ;)

  

I will put a video of her progress soon on the Training Days' blog, for now just a short little preview of some of the work we did today: 

The best thing about having a rider around the horses for longer than a usual one hour session is that they learn more about the behaviours of the animal they ride. They also learn how to take care after the horse once the riding is over. 

They learn to sense the addictive scent of a horse...