poor little monkey, his leg was sooo swollen :( cold hosed it for 20 mins, then gave it a good clean with hibiscrub and sudocream. took him for a little nibble on some grass and then spent ages giving him a good old groom, which he loves. made sure i got all his special scratchy places :)

poor little thing xxxx

poorly pony

my poor pony isnt very well :(

he got kicked in the field on tuesday, fighting with Ernie, and cut his offside hind quite badly. he was totally sound on it though, as had been tearing around the field like a loon, and trotted up fine.

But now its balloned up and infected, and he is acting like his leg is about to drop off :(

He is having daily penicillin injections, box rest and lots of cold hosing-and mostly importantly-lots of cuddles from mum! poor little man xxx

i know noone reads this and i dont care-but really want to say-I LOVE YOU RANI <3 you make me feel so much better :) xxxx

ahh he is SUCH a thoroughly nice person!

spent of time fussing around grooming him, rode around the school for a bit, but wasnt really clicking today, both in funny moods or something, so left it on a good note and spent lots of time having cuddles, which he LOVES. hahaha he through a wobbly in the school and chucked a few bucks in, he makes me laugh when he does his 'i used to a be a showjumper you know' bit!!

lesson

really good lesson today-shoulder in, from a 10m circle then down the long side in walk and then sitting trot, then worked on getting him forward into an outline, and he really started to come round by the end. have to be really careful to not be tempted to fiddle with my hands to get him round, i know its all from the leg into hands, but i keep finding myself squeezing on reins, and getting a bit hand happy. he keeps trying to cross his jaw aswell, which doesnt help. hes quite stiff, so shoulder in will help supple him up, and working correctly will start to build his topline up, and relax the bulk off muscle on the underside of his neck, where he has been worked incorrectly.  he was quite stiff and short in his trot to start with, had a canter and really pushed him to open up, and all the tense muscle on his back just relaxed, and he could move much more freely.

hes such a star!!

im super tired, so wont write much, but he was soooo good today!!did lots of work on transitions, and lots of big circles-on both reins did circle at C, then at E/B, then A, which is one of my favourite exercises to work on bend and straightness. with lots of leg, he came into a really nice outline, and worked beautifully.

Luran doing chase me charlie!

This is a video one of the girls at the yard told me about! its from a few years ago, and you can see Luran in it! Gotta love the fact that a cob won this!!!

first hack!!

yay went hacking today!!!! he was a super star!!!

was just pottering in the school, when another girl asked if i fancied a mooch around the roads with her. after sundays little tantrum with rani throwing his toys out of the pram about leaving the yard, i thought it was a really good idea-i wanted to do something about that anyway, so this was perfect. he was really good, had a couple of little spooks, but was a very good boy :)

napping

I was super sore when i got up this morning-proof that ive been using my tummy muscles to ride then!

Had a bit of a play in the school today, lots of turns and direct tranisitons, then did the 'five and five' exercise i read about in a book. on a big circle, do 5 strides of walk, then 5 strides of canter, then 5 of walk etc etc and repeat it until the horse is anticipating the transition, so he becomes really engaged. then chose random amounts of strides to keep his attention. we ended up doing 10 and 10, as still find it quite hard to go from canter to walk, and it was getting tight. also on the right rein he found it harder, as stiffer this way anyway, so was easier to make it 10.  got some really good turns as well, really using his hind quatres and pivoting, so dead pleased today. now having issue when doing halt-trot in that he is getting wound up and walking backwards, as opposed to halting.

he was a little bugger when i tried to walk down the lane to cool him off though!was really napping and trying to get back to his stable, struggle d to get him off the yard, he was rearing and spinning and being a right git! i think it was naughtiness, as opossed to being scared of something, like he was yesterday-he loosk at everything when we go down the lane to the other school, but never been like this before. like a totally different horse.

so thats something to work on cos i wanna hack!

Lesson

Luran was SUCH a star today!!super pleased with him! He had a bit of a tiz looking at things like they were about to eat him at the begining if the lesson, as we had to go down the lane into the other school, and he is scared of the big wide world haha. He is good though, i dont mind him looking at things, but he isnt to run away, or refuse to go forward. So it took him a few mins to settle, which we spent getting him into the corners of the school properly. He was really together and off my leg today, all the work we've been doing on transitions is def paying off, instructor noticed he's more in front of my leg too. did some wrok getting him to stride out in trot, and then we did some work on how i was sitting to be most effective, using my tummy muscles to pull him up and drive him forwards, and using my hips to "push' him forward. This made such a difference in canter-sitting up properly, shoulders back, chest open, hands carried, and driving him forwards with my hips/tummy muscles meant that i didnt have to chase him so much with my leg. I found him more difficult on the right rein in canter, as he was stiffer this was, i found it hard to use by seat effectively to push him forward, as i just felt like i was being bounced out. Using my inside hip/seatbone to really push done into the saddle helped him go better on this rein. got him to really lengthen out in canter, and he felt really in front of me, rather than feeling like i was dragging him along under me-haha i think he was doing his 'i was a showjumper you know?!' canter for me! he was really starting to come down into a nice outline as well today. did some more work on walk/canter and trot/halt today. def easier to get to canter/trot than it is to walk or halt back from it, so i am going to practise lots of that this week. Bless him got all excited about it! we even got halt to canter, which i was very impressed with him for, it was nice and calm, and not because he was hyped up, so was dead pleased! Think he was having a bit of a talk to himself the whole way through today, was really mouthing his bit and pulling some funny faces! I also seem to have lost the ability to tutn properly at the moment, so we practises lots of E-B and A-C changes of rein, so that there were 'definite sharp' turns, so he was pivoting around rather than just drifting around. oddly difficult! we are gonna get that spot on for next lesson!

super proud of how hard he worked today!

ahhh he was such a good boy today!!! did some lengthening/shortening of stride exercises in walk, trot and canter, counting how many strides down one long side, then aiming for more or less on the other. did a bit without stirrups-ouch, he has got a proper swingy, bouncy trot-well, and then some work on a long rein in w/t/c to get him to have a decent stretch out.

then it was bathtime again!!he's got a few little bald patches on the inside of his stifles, and is generally a bit itchy, so bathed him in skin calming shampoo, and spent ages rinsing it all out. absoultely hates having his mane washed and rinsed, turns into a right strop!

when i first got there, he gave me a 'who the hell is this mad woman and what is she doing calling me rani-pops' look, then i think he clicked and came over for lots of cuddles! he's such a nice person, likes a good chat :)

Love you Luran!! <3