Silke the Friesian

Something very exiting has happened. After have shared a horse 1 day a week and riding at the local riding school I have decided that I do not have enough horse in my life. I need my own.
And I do not want one with thin weak legs, I want a sturdy one. But not a heavy horse. Arghhh it has been a struggle but after some browsing I ended up with choosing the Friesian as my next horse.
After browsing and researching for a while I found out they are quite expensive... especially the once that have gone some dressage and are well braked in.
So after looking at young foals and 2 year olds I found the perfect horse. Silke. She was a bit to expensive for me, but I decided to contact the owner anyway. And just like that, she agreed to let me borrow her.
First for a year, and then maybe more.
And last week, that is what happened. Silke arrived.
I must admit I did struggle to find the stable I wanted her in.
Stables around here are plentiful, but I know what I want, and can be a bit picky.
I wanted a warmer stable, no minus degrees indoors with frozen water, I wanter good working conditions with an outdoor or indoor school/arena. I wanted her to be outdoors all day no matter the weather. I wanted to choose the feed she is given. Someplace indoors to wash her. The use of as much wood cuttings as I wanted. No drama, I prefer older people to young once around the horses both for the quiet and the no drama. Wow, I sound like a bitch now ;)

Well I found the stable and now the Friesian Silke is in it.
She is soon to be three years old later this month.
I have found a girl that will help me train her. She is trained in The Academic art of riding and will help with the ground work preparing for breaking her in after this summer.

This will be the most exiting year to date!!!

Me and my giraffe

So this last weekend we did a whole weekend adult riding class. 5 lessons in 3 days.
I was soo exited and had looked forward to this for 2 months.
We arrived on Friday after work and I could not believe my luck getting one of the private horses. This riding school sure has a lot of good horses and I have tried a few of them, always so happy with them!
She was suppose to be a gentle lady and I was flattered to be seen as good enough for her. And yes she needed the gentle touch. She was light on her feet, very pretty and had a good step / pace.

But her head... was in the sky all the weekend long. She looked like a giraff. My instructor was as desperate to get her head down as I was and the entire weekend was just one long fight about keeping my hands in the perfect way, to make her want to go to the bit. And with no success.
I felt I tried everything.
Normally I do not have problems getting horses to take the bit, but this lady was different.

After five hours desperately trying to get her to carry herself properly I finally had to cave in and go home deeply unsatisfied. I felt like a failure, and it seams I do not have the stomach for long lessons like these once.

I know I need the horse to carry herself correctly for her to stay healthy, but believe me, a long hack would have done this horse so much more good than five hours of me struggling on her back.
I think we both would have preferred it.

In retrospect I am not sure what I have learned...
No gallopp, no jumping, no fun stuff, just hard work with moving my hands one cm forward and backward, staying as still as I could in the saddle not to make her flinch and go all giraffe on my again.


Not sure I will go back.
I really need to get my confidence back before going there again!

Being an instructor

The first times my Hubby rode a horse with no instructor I was very busy with getting to know this new horse I was riding. Me myself and my horse.
I did not take much notice of Hubby.
That was until he was almost thrown off 4 times in half an hour...

As an experienced rider it is off course my responsibility to make sure he has a good introduction to the sport. I am not sure why I did not see that before...

As a 20 year old I worked as a riding instructor for kids learning to ride, but it is such a long time ago, and the ponies was slow and tired of the arena.

Now it is a grown man and a tall proud young Irish Warmblood.
Something entirely different...

So I did what I always do... I googled!
And I found a very useful tool, a lesson plan!
This brilliant web page har quite a few blog posts on instructing, but most importantly, when assigning to the news letter you get a lesson plan template.

I filled it out and had this planned:

In the stable/prep: 
* Learning about the horse boots and bell boots. How they are fitted and why we use them

Warm up:
* Riding out against the fence, not cutting corners in walk
* Round volts/circles, not square

Main part:
*Working on posting trot, low silent hands
* Riding in slalom/ weaving game

Cool down: 
* Talk about next time, plant a seed to go hacking soon
* Ask him to let out the rains (this was what brought on the first buck that almost sent him in the ground)

I felt very prepared, had a clear goal and all went to plan!
So pleased!

Careful... progress

So last week we had such a scare. My hubby was almost thrown off his horse 4 times. We are not sure what happened or why the horse was spooked. We certanly need to remove some ifs or buts for next time. No riding in the dark and hand walk the horses to the arena.

We all where sooo very nervous today. My hubby for being thrown off, - his horse for spooking hubby again and - me for being responsible for hubby not wanting to continue riding.

We hand walked the horses up to the arena where we ride. This time we went out early to make sure we had daylight. Harder to be spooked in sunshine :)
I used a lot of the time on Mr standing in the middle instructing hubby and his horse Ginger. Ginger walked with tiny slow steps making sure hubby was comfortable. I was not sure how much instruction to give and decided to constantly give small cues to make sure my hubby was concentration on something other than his fear.
It all seemed to work as after a few bumpy trotting steps, hubby and Ginger was back in the game again.

Both horses seemed more relaxed, and well ridden this time. We asked if the owners of the horses would make sure the horses was well exercised and they sure was.

Mr was stunning as ever, doing his job in his own speedy tempo. I am more used to him now, and him with me. I hope we will have many hours of fun together.
Next time I will add some ground poles to direct the horses in straight lines. There is a lot of cutting corners and bad navigation at the moment. Force ourself to steer the horses in good paths and teaching my hubby good arena etiquette

Hubby and Ginger

Set it free...

If you love something set it free! 

If it flies away, it was never meant to be.  

If it comes back, it’s yours for ever. 

First time alone - Spooky horse

So for the first time in quite a while my hubby and I was to ride alone. No instructors, no owners...
We arrived at the stable and it took forever to find the correct tack, get their food made and cleaning out the stalls. By the time we where out of the doors with the horses it was very late indeed.

We headed up to the fenced area and again it was frozen. We tried to get the generator thingy that runs the light up and running, but we did not manage to get it going. We rode in the dark for about an hour working both on the horses and from the ground learning to know each others.

After about half an hour my hubbys horse went in the air almost throwing him off. He was off course scared but managed to do all the correct movements getting the horse to relax again. Well that was my husbands first canter ever... Not the way we planned it.
His horse kept suddenly going off in gallop, and in the end we counted 4 times where hubby totally lost control and of course his confidence.
This was NOT the introduction I was wanted. He have been riding for about two months in a steady pace learning in a good tempo, and then this came and ruined it all.
I felt so incredibly guilty and a poor mentor.
I really need to find ways to ensuring that this do not happen again.

My horse, sweet Mister did everything perfect this time. He was calm, collected and attentive. Never jumpy or scared. He even let me open a tricky gate from his back.
Very sad that Hubby had such a troubled day, but at the same time, happy that Mister was more of a treat this time around.

As you probably can tell from the images, Mister needs his stall cleaned. Maybe that will be my Christmas gift to him! ;)

So until next time...

Testing another horse

After calling the local stables checking if any of the horse owners needed help during their week, we have become quite popular. Not many grownups want this type of hobby/work and most girls wanting to ride are under 16.
We have gotten three places to check out where there are at least 2 horses that needs riding 1-2 times a week.
Last week I tried one horse in a nabouring village, this week I tried one in our village. My husband has just started riding and we are a package deal him and me. He wants to ride both learning at a local riding school, but would also like to ride once a week, if there is a calm horse available.

Luckily for us todays stable visit was just perfect. Two horses was needing a rider, and one of them is very calm and safe. I tried the older horse, him being 19 years old, however claiming he was only 6. :) Loads of engine, happy chap and the owner reminds me of me when I was loads younger.

The horse my hubby tested is about 10 I think. He is an Irish chap and loves to jump. He has apparently jumped 1.75m more than once. Very impressive indeed.
We rode in a fenced area and although it was frozen solid, we got a god impression of the horses.
And we where both happy.
I might admit that I would love more of a challenge riding and an indoor riding arena would be preferable, but right now, I am all for getting my hubby into this sport, so I will run with this!

The owners was happy and after a signing of some documents giving us responsibility if something went wrong, we were ready to start this adventure!

Horse: Mister and Ginger

Type: Dressage / Trying out
Conditions: Frozen solid