[Monthly Review] November 2013

This year seems to have flown past! As of the end of this week (6th December) I will have finished my first term of my last year at uni, scary! 

November has gone quite well with Pea, he is so much happier working and has realised that he can go faster out hacking now and has decided that trotting fast will definitely mean that he can canter and do his little gallop, which unfortunately it doesn't but he still tries! 

Having a quick power nap before hacking!

His schooling is slowly coming on and he's a lot happier but he needs to learn to relax and soften more, and also to pick his feet up! He has started to get a bit iffy again about right canter, but fingers crossed a few lessons will put us back on track and I'm also going to get his saddle sorted again after Christmas as he's lost a bit of weight recently since I have decided to stable him this winter. We have been doing lots of bending and leg-yield to try and soften him up a bit and bend better and it is getting there, but every now and then he'll start rushing a bit and just throw his head in the air to try and evade the contact. I have also had a little jump on him which he was surprisingly very calm about, though I had them really small so he wasn't particularly putting too much effort in so next time I shall have to raise them! He did have a strop though when I schooled him a bit after as it had started getting a bit too dark to jump properly as for some reason the lights are only in the top end of the jumping arena where the dressage boards are and the other arena has only one jump in! 

This winter I have decided to stable Pea at night as we are meant to have a cold winter and last year he got really tight through his hind-quarters due to standing against the cold so I'm trying to minimise that this year. Luckily he seems to be okay with the new routine and he still gets a good 6+hours out in the field during the day and has decided that he simply must roll in the muddiest puddle every day! 

Sorry about the lack of blog posts lately! I have been busy with my final year of university as well as getting up early every morning to do Pea before work or Uni and also sorting out jobs for after graduation! 

Thanks for reading, 

Laura & Pea x