Wednesday 27th August

Well I haven’t been in the country much the last few weeks so I was desperate to get out and play with Blossom. So I headed out to the field, as I entered the field something spooked them and the all galloped off up the field. Once whatever sacred them disappeared Blossom noticed me in the field and trotted straight up to me, and then lowered her head for me to halter her. I started playing friendly with her with the carrot stick and string and then found all her itchy spots – she loved that!!

We then moved on to playing with sideways, trying to do it without a fence she is getting much better at this but still tends to go forwards sometimes. Im going to try and really work with this game every time I play as it seems to be one that I forget about a lot.

We then moved on to playing circling game, the main focus on this tonight was to try and get her really soft and stop her leaning on the rope. After a few laps she was really listening and the circles where getting really soft, with some slack in the rope. We also got some nice transitions in as well, Blossom actually offered a lovely steady canter that I was more than happy to accept.

We then played squeeze game over a jump, she was very good a little hesitant at times but I made sure I didn’t make it about the jump and given a little more time she was jumping really well with confidence. I then played circling game on the move until we got to the barrels, here we played circling game through the barrels. She was a little unsure maintaining trot going through the barrels, so would come back to a walk or sometimes halt then walk through then start trotting again. By the end she was able to maintain trot so I was really happy with her.

Then we found the hula hoop in the long grass so played with that – starting with just playing friendly all over her body and getting her to put her legs through it. I then used it to apply pressure to zone 5 to teach her to yield from pressure, which she did but wasn’t 100% sure of what I was doing. Going to do more of this as I think it will really help us with our trailer loading if she is more confident in zone 5 and will then yield to the pressure of the back bar instead of pushing against it to try and get out.

I then had a quick play with needle prep and smell your tail – both went really well. So I then played with holding her tongue, she still moves her tongue around a bit when I first hold it but is getting much better.

We finished our session with some bareback riding in walk and trot – she was really good and stayed calm most of the time which was good as I haven’t ridden her in a while. I then got off and played friendly then took her halter off and left her munching the grass. But as I was walking down the field I could hear her galloping down behind me, she galloped past and turned and came straight towards me and then stopped right in front of me. It was amazing, know idea why she done it.. But I gave her lots of friendly and a treat!!