A Cracking Good time

What a wonderful time we are having these last few days have been epic. Well epic in the eyes of an anxious person with a rehabbed horse.

Tuesdays lesson was awesome. The light is beginning to shine on Charlie the potential dressage horse. As ever his future is quite literally in my hands (and seat and back and pelvis etcetera). working again on contact and transitions from walk to trot we found the softness and the beauty of an upwards transition engineered correctly.

I came out of my lesson on a high and looked forward to loads of practice. Unfortunatly our planned schooling has been kidnapped by the hacking out fairies and here we are its Thursday and I have had two cracking good hacks. Both with hiccups but then it wouldnt be Charlie if we didnt have a hiccup.

Wednesday Chris and I hacked around Leonard Stanley and had a blast back through Penn Woods and back down the 'track of despair' to the farm. In Leonard Stanley we met the recycling Lorry. It was hiding around a bend making as much crashing glass sounds as it could. Both horses threw a wobbly and Charlie was still wound up like a coiled spring when we met the real monster! Horror of Horrors a branch poking out menacingly near a house. Well it was either that or a purple invisible dragon. We had one of his nuclear hiccups and literally minutes later were back on the straight and narrow.

We had a lovely canter in Penn woods and then came down the rocky track to the farm where there are very very big dragons. We know this because the farm dogs are always on the defensive and there are dead sheep secreted around the property.

Added to that we have a history PRE op of a dump and bolt home riderless, a run up a bank from a sheep and a hack that was abandoned when two mares spooked and danced around Charlie in circles with their skirts over their heads while he tried to impress them with his elevation on hind legs.

Today we had another cracking hack this time in the opposite direction through the cows field which they aren't in because there is no grass. We went on towards Crawley hill and to Charlie's and my horror the fields across the lane were populated with sheep and OMG frolicking bloomin lambs.

Lambs are great on a lovely walk but when you are on horseback the flipping things are so bouncy and noisy. They have no sense and shout mum lots and never run in a sensible direction. They were mostly on the bank and so we walked the horses very quietly near the hedge. Unfortunately as we came round a corner a couple of ewes were stood in our path menacingly surrounded by lambkins. We had the opportunity to practice the slowest walk on the planet while we waited for the Ladies to remove themselves and their charges.

Phew I breathed a sigh of relief and then through the gap to the next bit of field and we were faced with lambs everywhere in the hedge on the left calling mum and ewes on the right shouting come here now or I will have to run through the horse things to get you.

God it's hard reading their minds and not placing your horse somewhere that will worry the sheep when you are bricking it.

So we survived and made it to Crawley woods. Up the paths and bounded on to the track and then Charlie thought we should turn right I thought left and so did Chris and Robin so cue some toy throwing from Charlie. Quickly over we had some lovely canters in the woods then some more then some more.
It was wonderful to feel that he has lost none of his hacking manners he was happy to lead and happy to follow Robin without getting on his heels. No racing when I lay flat on his back under trees and he wasn't bothered at all when I whacked my knee on a tree and screeched in his ear.
The traffic was blasting along the top road and he wasn't the slightest but bothered by it.

We finished off going back down to the farm along the track of despair and he was lovely and this time Robin had a panic at a piece of black plastic by the hacking gate and Charlie just walked across it to see why Robin had spun away.

So all we need to do now is switch of the emergency up trigger and we are sorted.