Time to Ride

Recently we cleared an area of the orchard that had plenty for the horses and ponies to graze so I haven’t had to spend time moving the equines and fence around, which means I get time to ride. Here’s a shot of Niko and I, he has his grumpy face on but he loves it really ;)

  
Here we are doing some trot I find it very hard to tell if I’ve got Niko in the correct head carriage, as you can see in this photo he is not in correct carriage. If you look you can see his head is ever so slightly below the vertical and his poll is not the highest point. For those of you that are unsure of the correct carriage his head should be on the vertical not below or above and his poll should be the highest point, that said you don’t what to be riding your horse like that all the time, because he should be flexible and also you're likely to cause damage to him if he works in such a high level of head carriage all the time.

Anyways here we are having some fun in the canter Niko really does love to canter and fast too. But check out how nice he looks with his bling, you might also notice he’s grown an ok tail but he does look a mess sadly because he is really starting to moult now. On the bright side he’ll be able to do more work with out getting too hot when he looses his winter coat.

In other news I’ve got a post on War Horse and Pippin that I want to do but that’s all for another day.

Bling and Other Horsey Stuff

  
Hello everyone I hope you are all enjoying your April and that you all had a great Easter with plenty of chocolate eggs ;) On a different note look at what Niko has; BLING! Admittedly it is not a great fit but I still really like it, to be honest it’s just a cheap rubbish one compared to some you can get but its still bling.

  
I have been finding it hard to get time to ride as we are nearly constantly having to clear new ground for the horses to graze, there is so much cutting back of the trees that needs to be done and then it takes quite a while just to set up the portable fencing. It really is a pain in the behind as I want to start riding Madeline more too and see if I can get her to be more accepting of the bit.

In other news we’ve decided that Pippin will get the cut, because realistically we don’t have the money to start breeding horses and on top of that I’ve checked out the market for gypsy vanners and there is very little point in it. So to save little Pip all the frustration of being a stallion but not being allowed to do what a stallion does I feel it best he gets the cut, now we’re just waiting for my father to cough up the money for the gelding operation.

 

Also I’ve been doing something new with Murphy it is called horse agility. Some of you might know what it is and for those of you that don’t here’s a video of someone doing horse agility but they are seriously good at it unlike me. Murphy and I have only done two jumps both very small but then he is quite a small pony. As it is oh so rewarding to have your trusty equine jump something with out any lead ropes or head collars I even gave it a go with Niko and Pip they both did one jump each with nothing on like lead ropes or any of that stuff and then I called it quits.

  

Anyways that’s about it from me I have been trying to keep up with all your blogs just not commenting on them, speaking of your blogs I thought this post on Hopeful Jumpers blog about an Exotic Feline Rescue Center was very cool and interesting, I really do love to see big cats, click the link to take a look for yourself Tiger Anesthesia Day.