We've been hibernating...

Or at least that's my excuse for not updating this since the summer :) A lot has happened since then! We finished our showing season winning both the novice working hunter and the upto 15.2hh WH. I was thrilled! We did some dressage the week after but it was a bit of a washout, literally! We tried our first novice but because of the abysmal weather and the fact her shoe was hanging off (only discovered this on leaving the arena!), we didn't do so well. Still, onwards and upwards!

We moved to the other side of Manchester and had a couple of lessons with a dressage rider. Unfortunately Saf didn't settle at the first yard as it was very small so we moved to a much bigger place. We both love it there so all is good! We've been doing some dressage competitions and getting lots of 2nd place rosettes. Would be great to finish the winter dressage series next weekend with a first place! We'll see. Our best score so far has been 68% so it would also be great to beat our personal best.

We've started having lessons with a brilliant eventer. We've only had one so far but it was great. I've got a couple of points to focus on:

- Do not let her refuse. Keep jumps small so if she stops she can do it from a standstill.
- Look up. Pick a point in the distance and focus on it instead of gawping at the jump.
- Shorten stirrups by 2 holes.
- Keep lower leg forward and heels down as an anchor.
- Keep arms loose at all times. Flap like a chicken if necessary :)

I had a jumping session on Saffy today in the rain. She was brilliant! I was trying to keep all those points in my mind. I was definitely looking up more and she jumped loads better when I did. I started off with them very small and the dozy pony stopped. I made her do it from a standstill and she did it but after a couple of goes we had demolished 2 of the 3 jumps :) I got off and told her she was taking the piss, put them back up and got back on again. We came around again and she went over them perfectly from trot :) We did the 'course' (only 3 jumps) in canter a couple of times then I got off and put them up. She was fine until we got to the jump on the diagonal when she stopped. It was too big to jump from a standstill (I think anyway..) so I turned her the opposite way to the way she wanted to go, gave her a sharp smack with my whip and turned her on quite a quick turn. She popped over it and got lots of praise :) She backed off coming upto the biggest jump but I kept my lower leg forward, sat back and wrapped my legs around her which resulted in a nice little pop. We did the mini course a couple of times, making it up to 6 jumps by repeating a couple. She was fantastic! A couple of times we even got all the striding right! Bless her she doesn't stop if she's on the wrong stride, just tends to chip one in, but she was really working hard today.

So overall, good session! Looking forward to our next lesson in a week's time. Possibly hacking out tomorrow if the weather's not too bad and then going to focus on dressage on Monday. She's having the back lady out on Tuesday so will probably need a couple of days off afterwards so will probably leave her until Friday and so a bit of dressage and pole work before the dressage competition on Saturday.

Roll on spring!