Saturday 26th July

Today I was going to Bankhead Farm for the dressage playday – dressage really isn’t my favourite thing unless it’s at a very high level. But I thought it would be good experience for me and Blossom. Especially as it would give us more purpose in the riding tasks and give us more of a focus instead of just riding about.

The day started with Blossom not wanting to go in the new lorry, typical gives her a nice new fancy lorry and she’s not interested!! She really tested me leadership and took over 45 mins to load her into the lorry using squeeze game. So we ended up being late arriving to Bankhead.

Once we arrived we headed to the playfield to get a good partnership with our horses. I started by asking Blossom to stand on a large tree stump, I have been asking her to do this for months and today she just got her front feet up straight away. I was so happy with her and played lots of friendly game. I then asked her down; otherwise I think she would have just stayed up there all day! We then headed over to a few poles lying on the ground to play squeeze game over, instead of walking over or jumping them she just wanted to stand on top of them. I had to make sure I was stayed very polite and thanked her for her effort but could she please walk over the poles not just stand on top of them. She was very good and responded really well and walked over the poles very carefully, and then I asked her over in trot and she jumped really nice.

We then moved over and played with circling game over the hills, and the jumping up the logs and back down the other side, she seems to really enjoy doing this and I always get her really relaxed on the circling playing here. Want to try and make something like this at home for her but not quite sure how I’m going to manage that…

I then drove her from zone ¾ up the field to the see- saw and played with that – she managed to walk all the way along with all four feet, in both directions! Big improvement, before I was lucky if she managed a couple of steps with her front feet on it!

We then headed up to play with the log jumps – again Blossom thought it was a better idea just to stand on top of the log instead of jumping it. I have no idea how she managed to balance her front feet up there but she did! So after playing friendly I asked her down and re – sent her to the jump, again she stopped and tried to stand on the jump so I was very polite and said thanks but I would like you to go over the log. It took a few attempts to get her to jump, but when she did I asked her to stop and gave her lots of time to think – lots of licking and chewing! I then re – sent her in the other direction and again gave her lots of time to think at the other end. Think this is something I need to do more often with her and stop expecting too much from her.

We then moved over to the outside of the honeycomb and played with sideways along the fence, still took quite a while for her to become soft and relaxed but its getting better than it has been – still needs lots of work.

We then went into a roundpen and played with transitions and change of direction on line. I feel that she losses her confidence when in canter and sometimes when in trot out on a 22ft circle. So I felt that playing in the roundpen would set us up for success and help Blossom learn what I was asking her.

Transitions went really well and she would come up and down with only a phase 1 – I was really happy. Change of direction didn’t go as well and still needs a lot of work, but by the end of our session we were getting a change of direction at a trot, still not perfect and still needs a lot of work but least now the foundation is there.

I then felt I should really stop playing with circles or she is going to get bored, so after letting her have a little rest time and a munch of grass. We played at liberty, starting with stick to me at walk, trot and back up. She was really could and really focused on me. We then played extreme friendly game – she was very good and seemed relaxed the whole time. I then moved on to smell the tail, very good both sides once I got her attention of the grass! Totally forgot about holding her tongue, so this is something I will need to play with another day. We then played with porcupine and driving, it was good still a little forward movement, but this is something I will work at again on line. Yo yo was ok, drive was good but draw was a little sticky. I then haltered her and played friendly before heading out of the pen.

After lunch we headed out to saddle our horses and prepare them for riding. I didn’t have to do much on the ground with Blossom before she allowed me to saddle her so I must have done something right in the morning. I drove her to the saddle from zone 5 and she put her nose on the saddle and the stood relaxed next to it. I then saddled her with the rope on the ground and girthed in three stages, done my pre riding checks and then mounted. Then just sat on her and gave her lots of rubs – Because she had been in the roundpen over lunch I took her out and took her to the water bucket in the field, but she didn’t want a drink. So we headed back to the roundpen and done some trot work. She was very calm and not as impulsive as she usually is, so I went outside the roundpen and circled the rail on the outside, again she was good so we went round around the rail of the honeycomb, still in control!!

By this time Sue and Len had built us a lovely dressage arena, so I headed down there with Blossom and walked round the arena to get her used to it, as it seemed to be quite a scary place. Once she was calm walking round I asked for trot, which appeared to be too much for her as she got very uptight and started cantering. So after getting her back to walk and settling her again we decided it would be best for Blossom just to the dressage test in a walk, she done this very well. Really long and low and relaxed. Seen as she had done it so well we thought we would try it in trot and maybe a little canter. It wasn’t great to anybody’s standard but to me I actually felt she done quite well. There were points in the test when we were out of control, with lots of brace. But there were also parts that I felt she was actually quite relaxed and listening to what was being asked of her. I then had to go as I promised I wouldn’t be too late home – wish I could have stayed longer. What a brilliant day, thanks everyone!!