Update on Sam and Exciting News!
Hello everybody!
It's been a while! But life has been very busy at the moment!
Sam's eye is completely better, the vet checked it out a couple of days ago (he was there to look at Ted's feet) and said we did exactly the right thing so yay.
Today I did some jumping with Sam and I think he's finally cracked it! Or rather we both have! Yay! He only knocked it a few times rather than only leaving it up a few times which is such an improvement!
He now knows that jump up = good, jump down = bad and even if he gets his striding wrong he sometimes still manages to clear it! He put in so much effort today!
Though we also encountered and worked through another problem.
Once he realised all he had to do was get over the jump without knocking it down, he then decided that he would do it really really fast. Charging to and from the jump is not how I want him to do things thanks.
So I made him trot it and let him canter a couple strides before. This meant I got the striding wrong, he jumped but knocked it down and then he decided to gallop off after the jump haha. I have a video of this one, it's quite funny. He did come back to me after a few strides, no idea why he decided it would be awesome to just RUUUUN haha. Weirdo.
Then I made him trot to it without letting him canter at all. He knocked it because I find trotting over jumps difficult timing-wise so I didn't cue him to jump early enough but he tried really hard and didn't fight me when I asked him to stay in trot so that was good. After that he really listened when I asked him to go steady in the canter up to and away from the jump. Yay.
We also jumped a spread for the first time! Yay! It's the first time I've ever jumped a spread and, obviously, the first time I've jumped a spread on Sam.
Picture time!
(Constructive criticism is not requested but not turned down. If you see anything you feel is worth mentioning, please point it out. I like to think I know what I'm doing wrong but it is easy to miss your own flaws. I haven't had a lesson in many many months and I know that this has hindered my riding. Also, it would interest me to know what you guys think of Sam as a jumper? How does he look? Considering he's had no actual training specifically for jumping and hasn't done it much for years.)
Trying to convince Sam that moving forward would be really fun.
Working on flexing at the poll.
I have fun...
Over-edited -_-
This is my favourite jumping picture :)
Neat knees :)
Over the spread
The final jump
I couldn't work out how to embed from photobucket, for some reason the html code wouldn't work...
http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g243/carrot_queen/Horses/?action=view¤t=jumpingthespaniel032.flv
This one you can see him start galloping off haha
http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g243/carrot_queen/Horses/?action=view¤t=jumpingthespaniel033.flv
I was just pleased he didn't rush and still tried for this one
http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g243/carrot_queen/Horses/?action=view¤t=jumpingthespaniel031.flv
ALSO
My friend Jess (who took the pictures/videos you've just seen) and I are going to Spain on Tuesday for a riding holiday! I went on this holiday in 2006 and it was amazing. On Thursday my mum just went "Oh I contacted the Spanish riding holiday place to see if they had any spare places, d'you want to go? You can bring Jess if you like..." haha.
I am so so so excited for this. To give you an idea of how amazing it is:
I'm on the grey horse second from the sea :)
(Video from youtube and therefore embedable)
By the time we reached my dad we'd gone back to canter but we had been tearing up the beach haha
http://www.fantasiaadventureholidays.com/ this is their website. It is such an amazing holiday. Riding for 4-5 hours every morning through amazing forests and on beaches, amazing weather, amazing horses, amazing scenery, amazing food as well. So good! I can't wait!
It's been a while! But life has been very busy at the moment!
Sam's eye is completely better, the vet checked it out a couple of days ago (he was there to look at Ted's feet) and said we did exactly the right thing so yay.
Today I did some jumping with Sam and I think he's finally cracked it! Or rather we both have! Yay! He only knocked it a few times rather than only leaving it up a few times which is such an improvement!
He now knows that jump up = good, jump down = bad and even if he gets his striding wrong he sometimes still manages to clear it! He put in so much effort today!
Though we also encountered and worked through another problem.
Once he realised all he had to do was get over the jump without knocking it down, he then decided that he would do it really really fast. Charging to and from the jump is not how I want him to do things thanks.
So I made him trot it and let him canter a couple strides before. This meant I got the striding wrong, he jumped but knocked it down and then he decided to gallop off after the jump haha. I have a video of this one, it's quite funny. He did come back to me after a few strides, no idea why he decided it would be awesome to just RUUUUN haha. Weirdo.
Then I made him trot to it without letting him canter at all. He knocked it because I find trotting over jumps difficult timing-wise so I didn't cue him to jump early enough but he tried really hard and didn't fight me when I asked him to stay in trot so that was good. After that he really listened when I asked him to go steady in the canter up to and away from the jump. Yay.
We also jumped a spread for the first time! Yay! It's the first time I've ever jumped a spread and, obviously, the first time I've jumped a spread on Sam.
Picture time!
(Constructive criticism is not requested but not turned down. If you see anything you feel is worth mentioning, please point it out. I like to think I know what I'm doing wrong but it is easy to miss your own flaws. I haven't had a lesson in many many months and I know that this has hindered my riding. Also, it would interest me to know what you guys think of Sam as a jumper? How does he look? Considering he's had no actual training specifically for jumping and hasn't done it much for years.)
Trying to convince Sam that moving forward would be really fun.
Working on flexing at the poll.
I have fun...
Over-edited -_-
This is my favourite jumping picture :)
Neat knees :)
Over the spread
The final jump
I couldn't work out how to embed from photobucket, for some reason the html code wouldn't work...
http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g243/carrot_queen/Horses/?action=view¤t=jumpingthespaniel032.flv
This one you can see him start galloping off haha
http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g243/carrot_queen/Horses/?action=view¤t=jumpingthespaniel033.flv
I was just pleased he didn't rush and still tried for this one
http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g243/carrot_queen/Horses/?action=view¤t=jumpingthespaniel031.flv
ALSO
My friend Jess (who took the pictures/videos you've just seen) and I are going to Spain on Tuesday for a riding holiday! I went on this holiday in 2006 and it was amazing. On Thursday my mum just went "Oh I contacted the Spanish riding holiday place to see if they had any spare places, d'you want to go? You can bring Jess if you like..." haha.
I am so so so excited for this. To give you an idea of how amazing it is:
I'm on the grey horse second from the sea :)
Click to view(Video from youtube and therefore embedable)
By the time we reached my dad we'd gone back to canter but we had been tearing up the beach haha
http://www.fantasiaadventureholidays.com/ this is their website. It is such an amazing holiday. Riding for 4-5 hours every morning through amazing forests and on beaches, amazing weather, amazing horses, amazing scenery, amazing food as well. So good! I can't wait!