Monday 18th June - Best lesson ever!

I am soooo thrilled with Angie today! Ever since I've had Angie we have been working together to develop correct muscle tone. As she is an ex race horse, she is used to being worked with her head high in the air (the natural position for a galloping horse)...The disadvantage of a horse being ridden with their head in the air is that their back dips down to the floor. If the back has dipped down, it means they can carry less weight and can even damage their backs. Imagine yourself being on all fours and someone sitting on you back with your back dipped to the floor - it may hurt a little....then try raising your back up to the ceiling - you will be able to carry more weight. Therefore, when a horse tucks their head in (ie. drops the head so it is vertical), their back rounds, they engage their hind quarters and work their muscles correctly. This has been a complex thing to ask Angie to do as she 1. has had to develop a different set of muscles and 2. has had to learn and understand what i am asking of her....and 3. I've never been taught or understood how to get a horse to do this before so I've been learning aswell!
Ellen has noticed Angie resisting my hand and leg aids and i have worked VERY hard for her to achieve this position in the walk but she always fights it in the trot. Today Ellen leant me one of her bridles with a different bit on it - this was to give more leverage from the reins so that Angie could release the pressure and find comfort not by sticking her head up, but by 'giving' her nose. We started work by lunging her - this is with no one riding her but a long piece of rope attached to the bridle and Angie circling around myself in large circles. At first Angie was trying to stick her head up, she had a little moment where she retaliated but Ellen had be driving her forwards and not letting her get up to mischief. It worked. In 5 minutes, Angie was relaxed, lowering her head and even licking the bit (sign of relaxation and contentment). She rounded her frame in both walk and trot - she has never done this in trot before so we were so pleased! she worked for 45 minutes on the lunge rope. She had sweat DRIPPING off her!!! She worked so hard. The next challenge was to try getting her to do this with me on her - this means using my hands and legs to achieve this rounded frame. It requires a lot of squeezing with the legs in the right place to get the impulsion of energy from behind in order to 'catch the energy' with the hands....it takes a good 'feel' of the bit (ie. feeling pressure with the left and right rein and using a sponging effect to enable her to relax and hold her position...and also having them at the right angle...meanwhile there is other technical stuff going on which in horse terminology is called being 'straight and true' but ill waffle about that another time! So as you can see, theres more to horse riding than just sitting not he horses back! Angie rounded her frame in both walk and for the first time in trot with me! I no longer had to work hard to get her to do this, every time i asked, she gave to me...it was an amazing feeling...together we are progressing and I'm so thrilled that we have an 'understanding' between one another...im also very grateful to Ellen who is such a fantastic, patient instructor and without her there is no way i would have got this far!!!

Angie was also lucky today as i went up early and took her rug off as it was very sunny. She followed me towards the gate of the field thinking she was going to get worked but i kept telling her to go and eat some grass and ill see her later!  I went down to Newcastle to test drive cars for the horse float. I then went to pick Angie up some more feed and even grabbed a bale of hay. As i had 2 hours before my lesson, i gave Angie some hay in her field and sat with her and groomed her, both enjoying the sunshine - to was like a summers day in the UK!

Test driving cars was fun. I tried the misubishi challenger and the nissan pathfinder. I preferred driving the pathfinder -  i think it is the more superior engine very slughly but the challenger is a lot cheaper. Ive therefore decided on either getting the top of the range misubishi challenger (4WD XLS) or the middle range Nissan pathfinder (ST-L) as second hand and 1-2 years old, these cars are about the same price - I'm going to be spending 40-45 grand on the car still. I LOVED the pathfinder Ti550 but its way out of my price range, even though i loved all the little extras like the DVD player for the kids in the back! I must be realistic...i have no kids so it would not benefit any one and i don't think Angie would want to watch anything on tv from the float lol.

Gaz has spent the day on the computer....a days work and he made 8 AUD. lol. Gaz said he would leave it to me to test drive the cars as he said he would only make me nervous which is true coz he likes to dictate to me how i should drive....even though HES the only one thats ever tried to kill us (hehe).

Gaz and I went for food on saturday night with our new friends em and nathan. they are great fun and we laughed so hard all night - we will have to do it again soon!

I asked Gaz if he would like to add anything he has done this weekend to the blog...he said no. he hasn't done any thing lol.