The prettiest chestnut gelding out there!

Alex and I moved. We have an indoor aren now! And we are really catching up with the trainings. Only after 3 riding sessions he is more confident, moves forward, loosens up on the bit and most importantly is calm and relaxed and hopefully enjoies our time in trainings.

Last time I introduced Alex and colorfull poles. And the poles lost this encounter since Lexy had no problem whatsoever with them. We could both walk and trot over without any hesitation and leading him in the direction I had chosen was possible 99% of the time. I am forgiving him this one little % since this is the best he has been with me. He is improving fast and am proud of him.

Picture blog

I couldn't decide what pictures to put up here so instead I took some I have liked in the past.
There are quite a few. In no particular order. They just come here like blogger decides.

Lateks and me on our last competition

Kaliif's first jump ever with a rider

Something small - Erko

Kaliif and me after a long break - we both had improved a lot!

Dallas - a real challange, a real big heart

Our first competition - Kaliif

All the effort that paied off - Kaliif

Athena after a long year of work

Man this horse can jump - still Athena

Our best win ever - Athena

Altius - devil! But oh those movements!

First time jumping out form home - Kaliif and our first 90cm class

Grenada trying her best

Grenada 2 years before the previous pictures

Kaliif showing off again

Grenada after some monhts of dressage work

And Kaliif with long rein and not running off - just being perfect

If you wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes. If you don't wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes.

I have been thinking if I want to keep this blog up. And decidied that yeah I do!

Haven't been riding with Alex for...well forever it seems. We are doing groundwork-lunging-groundwork-lunging etc. After If I really felt the importance of those two when you want a well balanced and active riding horse.
Last time I brought out the big scary green ball. Alex almost dropped dead when he saw it. When the ball moves he is gone. Like gone as far as possible. So I sat on the ball and called him. Oh he came, as suspicios as possible yes but he came. And after a while he touched the ball with his nose. And there came the cach for him. He got a treat! Oh he loves treats he does! I kneelded down on the other side of the ball and every time he touched it he got a treat. After a while we made a little break. When I came back (with the ball...which means he was gone to the other end of the pasture in a second at the beginning) I staied standing and a little bit away from the ball. Now he had to move the ball a little and I also added a verbal command "ball" with the hand gesture torward the green beast that might still attack him any moment. And after some attempts he managed to move it without panicking. Then the ball decided to roll out of the paddock and Alex managed to stay pretty calm. I ended our play session with some running where he couls strech his legs and just buck around. Oh and he also comes when I whistel. So cute!

And I decided that the other furry creatures are also important enough to be mentioned here.
Luna aka Muna is a 10-year-old sporthorse. Alex's mother and real chestnut mare! She is just being pretty since her physical healt needs not to be tested for its limits. Not that anyone now thinks she is sick and doesn't get the correct vet treatment. She is fine! But she has a past with injuries so she is just happy with her foals and enjoies her food and cuddls.
Sunitha L3 aka Suss is Lunas latest foal who at the moment is 2 and a half years old. Half arab and nuts in the head. But oh so sweet and lovely when you get to know her. We have managed to learn how to behave on the lungline. And oh that was so so so hard way to go. She has little patience and lunging is extremely boring for that lovely lady. Only thing I did was staing calm. Even when she was doing everithing but running nicely in a circle I took her in and leaded her back to that damn boring circle. And along the way she started staing there longer and longer. Now we have used the lunging girth once as well to start her getting used to and she accepted it quite well.
Ats (who saddly doesn't have a nickname) is a nice little estonian horse. He came to M. as a really really scared pony. He is 3 years old. M. did an amazing job with him. Being patient letting him get used to and then showing that humans can be nice. Now we are extremely nice on the lung line where he can walk, trot and canter calmly and is showing some good relaxed movements. And he also walk and trots with the rider on. On the lunge line still. We have been out on a really short hacking trip with him on walk and although he protests a little he settles down easily. I have also used him as a school pony for C. I would have never done that without knowing him and would never recommend using a horse that young who is still learning to be used for schooling. He takes those lessins with full seriousness and behaves like a real schoolmaster. He is easily adjustable by the riders seat so he really helps C. find her balance and work with her. We are not using the reins on trot. I really would like to get him to work well with the balance and seat changes. He is showing a hughe potential.

Well...it is allready a long post so the 2 rental horses who also live with us I will introduce next time.

If grass can grow through cement, love can find you at every time in your life.

So after an everlasting break form this blog I decided that I have something to write about...again. I'm back in my home country. Athena, DL, Carms and the rest fo them are left behid and dearly missed. I should mention that Athena came out to be one of the best and strongest competition horses I have had so far winning me some jumping and cross country rounds and finaly after more than a year tough training delevering decent recults in dressage. Now she is waiting to be a mom next spring!

As soon as I set my feet on my home country again I started riding my dear, dear, dear geldindg Kaliif aka If, Mammoth, Cutey. But life is what happens when you least expect it. And somwhere along that way I saw that I wanted something else...and as sad as it is If could not come with me. He gave me 5 wonderful years and I gave him all I knew. I never regret any moments spent with him. I hope and know that he will find somone who one day will love him as much as I always will.

Now I am having my fist lease horse. Alex L2 aka Lexy, Pony. Currently 4 year old sport horse gelding, 175cm and a real pain in the neck. But he will jump...one day he will jump like a dream I tell you. He loves freaking me out by walking on two legs whenever he feels like it. But man he is such a suck-up! He goes around like litte sheltand pony with his LOVE MEEE! face.

8., 9. november (DL)

I forgot about this place.
Sorry!
It happens with me!
 So I'm just going to start with yesterday


We had a jumping lesson with DL. She has been pretty depressively not so nice lately so I was not hoping much. But it was better than I expected when we started to warm up. She was more aware of the bit that past couple of weeks. And she staied on the bloody bit longer than usual. I didn't need to have this constant nag nag nag nag reaction with my inner leg. It was more like small reminder to stay the hell down every 10-15 steps we made. What was wonderfull to see was the fact that I managed to keep the outer rein line. Congratiulations on the big improvement. After Athena I had gotten really laizy with that so I sometimes overbent DL inside a lot and then was wondering why the hell is the horse leaning away in all the wrong directions. There it was...the small littel reason named please-keep-the-solid-contatct-with-outer-rein. And it worked wonders as usual.
Jumping itself was even better. After the catastropgy we made last week when I was trying to learn high class flying exercises I practiced a lot of different canter ...''stuff''... at home with her. Like two-point, light seat, something between the light seat and two-point, sitting in deeper and so on. So we developed an agreement wiht DL that the best way to keep her canter quality and rythm ok is when I do the almost two-pointy like thingy. Just to make sure to all of you it looks pretty nice and ''proffessional'' when I saw the wideo and pictures. Nothing weird I promise. 
So the jumps were well prepared and nice. Morte made us do some technikal turns and DL plaied them out pretty well. I tried some sharp turns on my own with her as well. Morten explaned pretty well, I have to think more to keep myself more upwards when I plan to trun sharply or when the next jumppreparation has to be quick. So I should not go with the horse until the very end of landing but sti back a bit before and get her to me quicker. DL was really honest and jumped everything. We finisehd with a nice 100-110 course.

Today I did an easier dressage training with our jumping saddle. She was again improved after the jumping. So keeping her more collected (but still relaxed and low) was easier. All goes into the outside rein as before. The moment I start working with the rein everything clicks and starts working out. So I asked a lot of circels and kept the inside leg on more to make her tolerant of the ''post'' effect again. She has tu turn around that leg not stepb away as she tried to do alst week. In canter we did flying lead changes. She's good with those. I take her shorter for 2-3 strides. Push with the leg (I use inside leg for raises and changes) and then give at for a second at the same time and voila there it is. Finished off with contra. Left leadcontra is still arder for her. Right lead we can allready keep the head straight and that is nice =) Even the turns come without any auto changes.


Oh and I taught her a trick. She ''laughs'' when she wants a candy and we are working on making her do it directly with the command too =) I should get the video from my phone =)

13, 14, 15, 17. september (Athena)

I was laaaazy!

But on the 13th we had a jumping training with Athena for Morten. She was...interesting. The warm up was almost nice. Couldn't use much leg on her since she was trying to run away from me a lot but at the same time she kept the collection pretty well when I plaied with the hand a little.
Jumping iself was so and so. At warm up crosses she was not so nice. Bounced a little vit too much and yeah. Then the first course I kept her really collected. So basically sat down extremely deep and gave her no freedom before the jump. She got kinda confused since it seemed I was not letting her jump but then in the right spot pushed her a little and over we went. I wouldn't say the jump itself was good but the tempo and her listening was pretty okey. Then the second course I let her loosen up a bit more. And then offcorse she took advantage of me a little and took off with extremely dangerous canter a few times. Before the double combination (1 stride between) I had to take her with the hand more forcefully otherwise we would probably have ended up in the middle of all the jumps. Then walked her a little and Morten did some gymnastical turns with us (S shape 3 jumps). First time she was okey and second time I had to get her even more sharper. So made the line a little bit more diagonal so the jump was not perfectly strait for us and turned a tiny bit with the legs allready while on the air. Was nice. Third time the same thing the opposite way. Athena tried to take off again for a second there.

14th was a dressgae training that was completely terrible. She didn't relax even for a moment and I have almost nothing to write about since there wasn't anything that worked. SO bad.

15th was the same almost though we were in the forest and the controllability was better thanks to belham bit but yeah still no relaxation so nothing to talk about :(

Today (the 17th) we tooka 150 minute dressage ride in the woods....(to be continued)

12. september (Carms)

Took the little pony bareback. Just rode. No work or anything. Just moved around and yeah. She was good...she was great as always. She's my little Carms so she can't be nothing but good.
And then we did some grazy without equipment riding practice which was soooo hilarious since she just wanted to go to eat all the time xD And I only had the rope around the neck. In walk she listened. And turned after leg aids and weigh shifting. In trot we kinda managed. Even did some trot poles and yeah nice. In canter it was a little fireballll!! I was just holding on and praying for my life not to fall off... Haha...productive I tell you.

I was in no mood to go with At or DL. Okey...accually I just fell asleep and yeah...woke up a bit before 16:00...that was bad...I should have had ridden atleast two horses byt that time. Ah well...happens =)