Finally, I have more to report on this month! As you may all be aware, Pea had 3 months off whilst I was on placement and so November has been spent bringing him back into work. He has been surprisingly so well behaved, it is honestly like riding a different horse at times! I expected him to play up a bit about things, nap out hacking, and definitely some bucking but so far so good!
We spent the first week just walking and then progressed to introducing some trotting. Over the next week and a half I gradually increased the trotting. I didn't plan on introducing canter until about the 4th week mark, however after 2.5/3 weeks Pea clearly had other ideas and decided to introduce canter himself! I decided to go along with it and just let him have a short canter before gradually increasing it. I've been really surprised by how well he has been out cantering, I genuinely expected him to do a few excited bucks but so far the only buck he's done was walking down a hill! He's really good in the fact that he will come back to trot when I ask him, even if he feels a bit strong, so even if he takes off with me I can trust that he'll stop!
I have two short schooling sessions with him. The first was mainly just to do some pole exercises and we stuck to walk and trot. He's a bit stiff in his stifle so the vet recommended that I try to do some pole work at least once or twice a week and this is something I definitely need to incorporate more, especially as he sometimes seems to get lazy and forget he has four legs that need to actually come off the ground in order to move! The second was definitely more of a schooling session and there is so much we have to work on! He was very reluctant about cantering in the school so I'm going to just incorporate short canter work whilst schooling but mainly focus on building the canter up out hacking so he gets stronger and fitter and then hopefully when we build it up in the school he will get there - here's hoping though as canter has always been a big issue with us!
Unfortunately, Pea has hardly done any work the past week/two weeks as I was ill last week with a really bad cold that just exhausted me and now this week I have an annoying sore throat/throat infection which I was really ill with but does seem to be getting slightly better. Annoyingly the doctor said that I still have 3-4 more days of it though, and I can't take antibiotics either :(
Pea is getting clipped next week and will also start coming in at night so I can finally crack on with upping his work more as at the moment he just gets so sweaty! I might book in for a lesson during December, but it will depend how he is going. I am also thinking of joining a local Riding Club so that I can get him out more often next year :)
Thanks for reading,
Laura xx
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