New horse, new territory… our first event of the season!
So, what’s new from Episode 1… well, quite a bit really!
Pea has been with us for 26 weeks now. Bang on 6 months today. The last time we chatted she she had had her checks done and had started all of the basic training and fittening with the hope that she would be up to eventing at some point this year.
Well, a lot can happen in a few months! Pea has taken back to ridden work so well and I cannot believe how much progress she has made. I feel really proud looking back at just how wibbly and inverted she was to ride only a few weeks ago.
He flatwork and suppling work remains a priority for us, as this is the area that will benefit her the most in terms of building the right muscles to become stronger. It is also the area that she finds the hardest and the least enjoyable, so I have to keep changing up what we do to make it more fun.
She is doing two schooling sessions per week and these are either on the lunge or ridden. They usually start by lots of stretching and bending, then move on to basic transitions, then direct transitions (e.g. Walk to Canter or Halt to trot and vice versa). This helps her rotate the pelvis and work rounder over her back which she needs to build those muscles. I will then do 5-10 minutes of lateral work, spiraling in and out of 10-20m circles and shoulder in in walk and trot, always dishing out tons of praise. Every other session I add poles and raised poles in too just for a bit of variety and add some lift to her paces.
She has responded so well to this program, with 2 hacking days, a jumping day (once a fortnight) and 1 or 2 days off.
It hasn’t all been plain sailing though! Our first lesson off the yard with incredibly stressful on the travelling front, so was the second trip to be honest! She is AMAZING when we get there, but her erratic weaving in the box makes the pit of my stomach do somersaults. She is just not settled.
Enter DAISY… yes, we got her a friend! Daisy is a 12hh pony that when her and Pea are in the van together, all is well in the world. However, separating them at the other end… not great AT ALL! So I am still on plan C of the 467 step plan Pea has mapped out for us and would welcome any suggestions here! (I have tried a mirror, a calmer, a teddy, partition in and out – it is a separation thing).
Regardless of our travelling woes, Pea was entered for her first BE80 at Epworth Equestrian last weekend and to save this post being exceptionally long, here is her our FIRST EVENT REPORT. If you don’t have time for this, just know that all my hard work paid off and we very narrowly missed out on a placing and more proudly, we had a 33 dressage which I was VERY happy with indeed.
We have also shuffled her feeding around a little bit and there is a post detailing both horses new feeding regimes HERE.
All in all, I am absolutely astounded as to how amazing this horse is. Every single day she makes me smile and I cannot wait to spend the rest of our lives together making even more fun and happy memories.
Thanks so much for reading, until next time…
Vic and Pea
xxx
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