Continued improvement :)

Its a little while since I updated so where are we now let's see.

Hacking - I hacked out with two friends yesterday Chris my hacking mentor on the lovely Robin and. Kim on her little cob Beau a sweetie who is only just 4.

The three boys did good together and our only hiccup was meetings tractor hedge trimming on peak lane and nobody wanted to go past it.

The passing was somewhat explosive but managed even though the driver who had turned it down started up too soon.

Schooling - going very well ever week our lessons just get better and the contact although lost at times returns more often and more consistently. Today we did an exercise riding a figure of 8 and riding a circle at each end of the 8 leg yielding on change of rein to get the hind leg more active. Who knew we would ever get this far!

Clicker training - I am of a mind to try some clicker training with Charlie and to this end have purchased a clicker and am perusing books on La Interwebly thing trying to decide who to invest in.

Equifeast - we are still on the cool calm and collected mid mag but tried upping the magnesium and this led Charlie to be a little silly. 

Diary date stopped adding extra magnesium on Tuesday 21/1/14.

Finally bitting Charlie does not like our hacking bit at all I am using the nathe bubble bit with a lozenge. We are thinking about trying a Pelham.

Contact and Hacking

Tuesday I found it at last. For the first time ever with Charlie Poshcob I found my contact and had him working into it. Sigh!

I have spent a long time searching for it and he has spent a considerable time being annoyed by my search when he wasn't struggling with his own dental challenges.

We managed to repeat the exercise on Thursday and then we had our lesson on Friday afternoon. My trainer upped the game a bit and unfortunately I lost my nice contact. It will come back but I was truly miffed as was Charlie.

And today we hacked again and Charlie was lovely if we don't count the bit where he shook like a giant Labrador and I nearly fell off. It was a beautiful morning for a hack so enjoyable with our field buddy Munchkin.

Two lush days playing with Charlie in the school

Yesterday we did in hand pole work which evolved into loose schooling over jumps. What a lush boy he is moving exceedingly well and very cheeky. I made small uprights out of blocks with poles on top and did a mini set of raised trotting poles and while my back was turned moving poles and blocks he.........kept going and popping randomly over the uprights and then elegantly over the trot poles finally coming to a halt beside me checking out the next block. Wave of my hand and 'go on over there' and he trotted off and popped a jump.

This morning we did a bit of lunging just using the Pessoa bum strap on and adding the front straps at the end. His trot work was lovely and then whoo hoo I asked for canter and he did a proper canter. Did this on both reins better on one than the other unfortunately being a twit I can't remember which rein duh! Think the right was the weak one maybe probably.

New year New Goals

Looking back at this date a year ago I note two things 

I was nervous just riding Charlie in the school and I had been advised to leave hacking out until we had more consistency.

Well exactly a year on we find riding in the school a piece of cake. I had forgotten about the spins and naps until I read back over the year.

Hacking out is still an issue but reading back again I realise it isn't the issue it once was and now we just have to bolster up my confidence.

We had another mini hack with a friend on the 29th December and Charlie actually took over and led after the pony baulked big time at newly painted SLOW and 30 signs. We also had to turn around as he napped into us and turned back straight away.

We are still on Equifeasts Cool Calm and Collected and indications are that it is working as Charlie isn't as twitchy and frightening things are snorted at rather than run away from.

So hacking will only happen when the situation is right and to be honest currently the weather is gross.

Here is a photo from today