{"id":8776,"date":"2023-01-31T17:37:54","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T17:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/?p=8776"},"modified":"2023-02-27T17:08:11","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T17:08:11","slug":"bella-stormy-february-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/01\/31\/bella-stormy-february-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Bella & Stormy – February 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wed 1st<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

WELL….today we have cold but sunny weather and I decided today was a good day to get out with the horses. The last week or so we’ve had noisy disruptions from pheasant shooting to chain sawing near the horses so understandably S&B have been a wee bit spooky and not wanting to go in their shelter for rest and food ;( I thought maybe get down there and do some ‘relaxation’ work while there was some noise going on BUT when I got there it was calm, peaceful and the chain sawing has now finished so I missed that but they were still not happy with half the field! SO….I groomed them both and got Stormy ready to ride but then played with him whilst walking down the field from ‘safe’ area to ‘scary’ area. Working on S2M, backing up and then reapproaching the scary area.<\/p>\n

Bella came for a bit then stopped and waited. When we got the some hay I let Stormy eat and relax and Bella found her way to us to eat too. I then took Stormy onwards to play with the pedestal and then the ‘scary’ shelter. We played going in and out of the shelter, forward into it then backing into it. He got over his initial worry and started listening more to me and I used +R (treats) to help make it all more positive for him. Bella didn’t come any closer to the shelter and when I got on Stormy she cantered fast back to the ‘safe’ area and I connected to Stormy through Lateral Flexion of his head and then sidepassing into leg yielding to keep his mind and feet on me and where I wanted to go and at my speed. It worked really well.<\/p>\n

We got back to the ‘safe’ area and did some ridden play with poles: backing up between poles, backing up then over single pole with 2 feet then all 4 feet. Sidepassing over a pole then sidepassing over the whole pole longways. Putting foot into hula hoop and then some small, precision fig 8’s around jump wings, transitions through a narrow bunting lane, trot poles and finished on a lovely trot weave around the jump wings \ud83d\ude09 He’s such a good boy, think he enjoyed himself \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Next I got Bella ready with her bitless bridle and bareback pad. I went to the mounting block and got on, she was fine but was then distracted by a nearby tractor and wasn’t paying attention to me, she was twitching in her shoulders as I asked her to walk on and she jumped a bit SO I got off and went to playing around the obstacles to reconnect to her mind and feet. Once I felt she was paying attention more and we were more connected I sidled her over to a jump wing and practised jumping up and down on it, laying over her back and flapping my arms about ready to remount. I then managed to jump on and just sit still with her for a while allowing her to focus on relaxing her body so that her mind could relax \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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When we did our bit of riding I just kept asking her to do small curves to make up a fig 8. Once the small 4 curves go well <\/span>start doing two small circles with rests between to make up the fig 8’s. Finally when I feel we’re really connected and working together we do some single full fig 8’s, rest and treats in centre for reward \ud83d\ude09 It was lovely to be on her back again, bareback too…it’d been 10.5 weeks since I last rode her (since 8th Dec last year) but the weather was just against us. I know now I will have to go through all the basic’s again, restart with slow stuff but she’ll be back being ridden out again this year quicker than last year and am looking forward to having a lot of riding\/hacking fun with her and Stormy this year <3\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Fri 3rd<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Finally some decent weather, not too cold and no drizzle.<\/p>\n

Managed to have a nice ride on Stormy, with a saddle for a change.<\/p>\n

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Felt really nice to ride him and then also ride Bella.<\/p>\n

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It wasn’t a big ride but a nice ‘start to the year’ for them both.<\/p>\n

Stormy just goes into the year with a nice plod and a bit of fun.<\/p>\n

With Bella I start her out doing all the basic’s again to reaffirm our connection.<\/p>\n

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Our start consisted of:
\n1. groom at liberty
\n2. tack up at liberty
\n3. play some games to connect us. We did S2M transitions to connect our breathing and\"\"energy
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\n6. check lateral flexion L&R
\n7. check disengagement L&R
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Then we just poodled about for a bit working on our left and right turns from my seat\/weight\/leg aids, we stayed in walk but did some halt\/backup transitions.<\/p>\n

She was really good and it was nice to start our year going back over the basic’s. Hopefully I’ll be able to continue building on this when the weather allows \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Sat 4th<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

No pics today but managed to get out and have fun with Bella and then Stormy around the first Agility course I put together. The course has developed over the last few days on paper and I use this chance to test it out so that I can use the course for students in March \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

The course consists of:
\n1. Bunting lane
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Tues 7th<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Between showers I managed to get out but only ride Stormy as showers stopped the fun.
\nBut Bella was fab and stayed by the mounting block and quad bike the whole time I rode Stormy which was great as there the estate were chain sawing and moving logs with a big tractor which last week had her running around high headed in the field.<\/p>\n

Hopefully I’ll get a ride on Bella this week \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Thurs 9th<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nice weather (although a bit windy) means only ONE thing…..FUN WITH HORSES and MARK \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

We had a nice potter around the field together, checking basic’s of walk\/halt\/backup\/walk\/trot’s and our left\/right turns with forehand and hindquarters. Also did a bit of trot work (Mark and Stormy did canter too). What a lovely way to start the year with Mark and the horses \ud83d\ude09 Onwards & Upwards \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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Bella & I did some ridden agility too \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Weave, sidepass, halt in x box….<\/p>\n

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walk\/halt\/backup in bunting land<\/p>\n

Trot poles \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Trot through bunting lane<\/p>\n

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Slow plod back with Mark and Stormy to the mounting block \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Fri 10th<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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A lovely day for a quick ride on Bella. Getting some basic hours of riding in to start the year off nicely.<\/p>\n

Started with Liberty grooming, putting bridle and saddle on. I like doing these things at liberty as it shows a trust between us but also if she needs\/wants to move away she can and I’ll listen to her and try to figure out what she’s trying to tell me…can mean sometimes I don’t get her tacked up or ridden but that’s what the partnership is all about…listening to each other \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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She did so well and so I mounted and we had a nice short ride.<\/p>\n

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Today I was just checking we had some nice soft transitions (walk\/halt\/backup\/walk and then trot too), that we had nice flexibility in our turns and curves and that we were able to find straightness together with loose reins and connected reins \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Stormy followed us around a bit too which was fun \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Sat 11th<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Loving this dry weather at the moment, managing to get some nice riding on Bella for the start of the year. I always try to start her off slowly with the things she already knows well, some nice\u00a0 walk\/halt\/backups to begin with, then get more into trot and leg yields\/sidepassing.<\/p>\n

It didn’t take long this Springtime to get her into a bit more trot, finding her balance and flexibility along the way.<\/p>\n

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We also did our first jump this year as this helps me fathom out how her trot\/jump\/canter depart is going which helps me know when to do more canter.<\/p>\n

This year is going to be about relaxation in canter for us. We’ve done relaxation in walk\/halt\/backup\/trot transitions and she learns pretty quickly SO finding that relaxation in canter is the next step. Horses, like all prey animals, use running as an escape from predators SO teaching her to relax, think and be calm with me when in canter is against what she understands for running in the wild part of her brain but I need to show her how to run calmly so her brain is still connected to me and her feet and that running becomes a calm conscious decision rather than a flee from danger process \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

We did finish on a really nice walk up a steep hill but then she decided to GALLOP to the top with me having to really turn her to the right before she ran into Stormy…..she was a bit in fleeing mode but also a bit in YEEHAA mode…she came down nicely and we did some cooling down exercises to make sure we were re-connected well before stopping. I think it really just took me by surprise the amount of sheer energy and power she had in what I thought was going to be a nice calm canter but turned out to be a full on run….wow wee is all I can say…the girl has some power in her hindquarters to bring on that kind of speed up a steep hill \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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Sun 1th<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Trimmed Bella’s feet today and then continued our Springtime start to the year. Started inside the round pens working on walk circles into bullseye then into leg yields out…this helps us both work on our flexibility, and being ‘straight on a curve’ \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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We then went to the cone and tyre circles to work on some weaving and again the arc in Bella’s body whilst working on them.<\/p>\n

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We then circled the round pens and cone\/tyre circles in trot, again asking for that nice curve in our bodies to keep working on arc of the circle. When she was calmly doing circles with a nice arc I then asked her to canter between the round pens and continue the canter to the left first and the right the 2nd time…all went well and it was lovely to have a nice calm canter today \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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We finished with nice soft walk fig 8’s to cool her down after her exercise as she had just a wee bit of sweat on her.\u00a0 Lovely day, lovely ride \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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Mon 13th<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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AND SUNSHINE TODAY \"\ud83d\ude09\"<\/span> Trimmed her feet then did another session of Springtime basic’s. It’s all going along really well, here’s what we did today:<\/div>\n
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1) bullseye circles into leg yield circles then into trot circles with loose rein<\/div>\n
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2) loose rein walk trot around to supple up and then into leg yield in trot (only 2nd time attempted over last couple of years and she did very well)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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3) large fig 8 pattern over whole field with middle between the roundpens…..walk 10 strides, trot 6 strides then canter through the middle for 4 laps \"\ud83d\ude09\"<\/span> \"\ud83d\ude42\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Yeehaa, really enjoyed today and love it when a plan is coming together. The consistency of getting to ride every day and also the training patterns are really helping Bella to have relaxation, co-operation, impulsion and flexibility much more. What a great start to our year \"\ud83d\ude42\"<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Tues 14th<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
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This morning I did the horsey morning chores (feeding and poo picking). It was pretty cold again and the horses were hungry.<\/div>\n
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I had some breakfast with them (digestives and water to keep me going until I got home) and they tucked into their ‘hard feed’ which is some warm speedi-beet and Top Spec Zero chaff (so basic forage) and then a big bag of hay which I put half out on the grassland and half in their shelter.<\/div>\n
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When Bella had finished her main food (she is always quicker than Stormy) I asked her, at liberty, to help me hand-groom her. She did a fab job of just resting her leg\/hip that I was grooming so I could see and get to it easier. She’s really turning into a wonderful partner to me \ud83d\ude09<\/div>\n
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She also did a wonderful Liberty Sidle to the mounting block for me facing to the right and then another facing to the left when sidled up to the quad bike for me \ud83d\ude09<\/div>\n
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Finally, after finishing all my jobs, I spent 20 mins of herd ‘Undemanding Time’ with them. This is where I just sit and relax with them<\/div>\n
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in peace and quiet, no treats, no tasks, just time spent together relaxing or snoozing. It’s a lovely way of doing ‘nothing’ with them after the time I spend doing ‘something’ with them normally (ie. interacting, play, agility or riding etc). A way for them to know I can be with them in their world without doing anything ‘to’ them and so they know I’m one of the herd \ud83d\ude09<\/div>\n
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Thurs 16th<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
Well you know when things just go right, things just slip nicely into place and it’s like you’ve dreamt something?? Well today was one of those days \ud83d\ude09<\/div>\n
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Bella and I have been working and progressing our horsemanship riding, she was only backed and started late in 2019 and this year I hope is going to be the year we do more canter work as we’ve got backup\/halt\/walk\/trot down nicely now. I’ve been playing with approach & retreat with canter last year so that we can, together, do it calmly, balanced and be more flexible as we go. So, what is approach and retreat? And why do I need it calm, balanced and flexible??<\/div>\n
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Well firstly A&R is a method I use with say something like a horse is fearful of putting it’s foot on a tarpaulin. I ask them to approach it and if they stop and take time to look at it but can’t go further I’ll ask them to back away\/retreat from it so they can take their minds away from the instinctual fear they may have and go to ‘thinking’ it through with space to breathe and think. This works very well but it also works for us humans too and I used it a lot with Stormy and Solly to get back into riding with out my own fear brace after some bucking accidents a few years ago.<\/div>\n
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SO….how do I use A&R for transitions? Well firstly I make sure we have the lower gait calm, smooth and balanced (ie. trot), then when I start to ask for canter we do it for just a few strides then back down into trot where we can regain our calm and balance without it all going off a bit. The reason some of these elements can go when going up into canter is that horses use canter for play and also to flee from danger so it’s us that want them to do it for athleticism and for that they need to be calm, flexible and balanced with the ability to think when we use cues to do other things like do a curve, circle or change leads when riding.<\/div>\n
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SO, since starting riding again this year I’ve been asking for Bella to have smooth transitions from walk to trot and back down again and every now and then she puts in a wee hop…..she was asking me if it was time to canter SO we’ve been working on the big field fig 8’s and I change gait often…walk, trot, walk, trot, canter, trot, walk, rest with a long rein and repeat. She’s been doing SO well that today the stars aligned and we not only got fabulous transitions, she was light on her forehand, which means she was working well from her hindquarters and thereby becoming more naturally ‘collected’ and her canter transitions were so light, balanced and the last one we did was SO flexible that we got a beautiful smooth curve to the left before coming back down nicely to trot and then I asked her to halt on a big breath out, jumped off and gave her a huge hug for being so fabulous \ud83d\ude42 \ud83d\ude42 \ud83d\ude42 Best day riding this lovely big mare, she is a star <3<\/div>\n
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<3 <3 <3\u00a0 Adore her SO much <3 <3 <3<\/div>\n
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Tues 21st<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n

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It’s been a bit off weather wise with some strong winds, snow and on\/off drizzle SO I gave Bella some time off but today it was mild, calm and dry…SO…out to be with her and Stormy. We mostly wanted to just groom them, mostly Stormy as he has a huge Winter coat just falling out in his Springtime moult….we brush him and it’s like a snowstorm \ud83d\ude09 LOL.<\/div>\n
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Whilst Mark was grooming Stormy more I had a wee play with Bella.<\/div>\n
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We had another FIRST today….she did a couple of circles in walk with me standing totally still.<\/div>\n
So far with Bella’s circles I’ve turned with her, encouraged her to go up into trot or a bit of canter.<\/div>\n
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Today I stood still and she and I kept our responsibilities to each other \ud83d\ude09<\/div>\n
These are:<\/div>\n
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Act like a partner, not like a prey animal. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Maintain gait. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Maintain direction. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Act like a partner, not like a predator.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Have an independent seat. (or independent feet)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Think like horse before you think like a human.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Use the natural power of focus.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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She was FAB to the left and right and it was a proud mum moment that she is now SO balanced, flexible and ready to canter she just did it \ud83d\ude09 <3<\/p>\n

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Big kisses for my big clever girl <3<\/div>\n
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Fri 25th<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
A lovely day to be out with the horses. Today I decide to take them both out for a walk, just for a change of scene, to get some exercise and also to take them on the circular route that at the beginning of the year they didn’t want to go down. This was mostly because there had been pheasant shooting and then chainsaws cutting trees down and a big tractor taking the logs away for quite a while. All that noise and going’s on disturbed them a bit.<\/div>\n
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But today it was calm, peaceful and beautiful mild weather so walking out along this route was a fun challenge \ud83d\ude09<\/div>\n
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Starting out we realised there was actual grass to be munched on<\/div>\n
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This was great as it works not only as motivation but I could use it as a reward too<\/div>\n
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They LOVED the long ‘soft rushes’ that were along the track….they don’t have these in their field<\/div>\n
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Going along past where they were worried last time they both put their heads up and we stopped for a minute…I then asked Stormy to take a step back to give him space to think and take a breath.<\/div>\n
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When I looked at where they were focused I saw it was just the sheep in the next field slightly hidden by the stone wall SO I let them hear my breath out, talked to them about it just being sheep and then asked them to walk on with me.<\/div>\n
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They walked with me nice and calmly and were rewarded down the bottom of the hill with lots of munches of grass and soft rushes \ud83d\ude09<\/div>\n
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Next we had a narrow track to go down. It has a steep bank on the left and a thin electric wire on the right so I had to make sure they were both safe and not hitting the wire.<\/div>\n
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We got down easily and calmly too \ud83d\ude09 Stormy did this ‘flehmen’ move with his nose…this is where a horse takes in new smells over it’s top palette and nose. It’s quite fascinating and he did it a couple of times which told me he was smelling something new or something he needed to take in again to figure out what it was.<\/p>\n

Main flat field called ‘the haugh’ just below their own field and they took opportunities to grab at some grazing the whole way and I was quite happy with that as it helped them be calm,<\/p>\n

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Lovely walk so far, really enjoying just being with them and in the peace that is usually around this area \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

We then negotiated a wooden bridge with a gateway where we went over and then had to turn and face the gate to be able to do it back up. They did superbly…..all the training I do comes into it’s own when doing this sort of thing \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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Finally we get to the last hill toward their field. When ridden they usually trot or canter up this hill, it’s a lot of fun but today I asked them to walk so that they didn’t run away from me and they did a great job \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Last pic of them back in the field <3<\/p>\n

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Sun 26th<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Busy’ish day today but managed to get a wee ride in on Bella while Mark trimmed Storm’s hooves.<\/div>\n
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Today’s main aim was ‘body dynamic riding’. This is one handed riding doing turns, or in our case weaving, through our eyes, shoulders, belly button, seat weight, outside leg with inside leg holding and the inside rein loose or open and the outside rein used as a neck rein. Bella did the best yet and was turning from my seat weight, body turn and light guidance with the rein \"\ud83d\ude09\"<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Mon 27th<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
Well March is almost upon us but I feel good that we’ve started the year very positively. Today Mark and I decided to ride and graze them the way I walked them out the other day \ud83d\ude09 It was a lot of fun, had a wee yeehaa when Bella got a fright with some stones tumbling down a steep hillock but then we used that energy to have a good yeehaa up the last hill to home…here’s some pics….<\/div>\n
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It was a really lovely ride….last pic was where Bella got a wee spook and we were going to just go back the way we’d come but decided after that wee yeehaa that we’d just go over the bridge and home…..<\/div>\n
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This last bit is the hill to home and I just asked Bella to take all her energy and put it into a nice big canter<\/div>\n

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She did really well, there’s a lot of big power in her hindquarters so she made short work of the hill<\/div>\n
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Great end to a really nice wee ride and our FIRST HACK OUT of THE YEAR \ud83d\ude42<\/div>\n
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* Shelley – HorseSavvy<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wed 1st WELL….today we have cold but sunny weather and I decided today was a good day to get out with the horses. The last week or so we’ve had noisy disruptions from pheasant shooting to chain sawing near the horses so understandably S&B have been a wee bit spooky and not wanting to go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[390],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bella-stormy-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8776"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8911,"href":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8776\/revisions\/8911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}