Friday 19 August 2011

Last week

In honour of breaking 1000 page views this week, I've finally put up a cute little custom banner!

On to the real story:
Felix has had a great week.  I am still paying Devan for pro training because I'm too fat and out of shape to ride for more then 15 or 20 minutes at a time at trot - and maybe half an arena lap at the canter. Also, my position is an absolute DISASTER. I will be posting some pics and vids so you can see how he is going, and I'll keep my fingers crossed they don't land on the Bad Riding blog.  I am accepting suggestions for any excersize program that needs no equipment, can be done easily while traveling and takes less then 30 min a day.

I rode 3 days last week, and Shauna had her first ride.  He's doing very very well, and now that he steers more or less properly I am trying to start him on some basic dressage patterns and w/t transition acuracy - which is going quite nicely.  I'm also working a little on his free walk, which is pretty horrid but we will get there. He just does not know to stretch down when I drop the reins yet, but it'll come in time.

Here is a couple of short videos showing a trot down the center line then a halt as is often found in entry level eventing dressage tests:


He seems to get a bit bored with extended walking,  and is a bit fidgety with the head, as seen in this video. I remember going through this with Dottie to a small degree, so I hope with time it'll go away.  It may also be his way of offering up a bit of a frame in the walk, as I believe Devan has been working on this with him:



Shauna did well in the trot too - she's a little floppy but that's only becuase this is her first ride in nearly 2 years, and really 3 since she's ridden consistently.   As you can probably tell - Felix is definitely the type that you need to tell to go forward, which suits me just fine - though he's WAY more quick off the leg now then he was a month ago:



And here is some various riding and pose with the pony pics.  I'm thrilled that Shauna loves him, seeing as I'd like her to keep paying half the board!!
















2 comments:

  1. I know this is a year after the fact, but in case anyone else finds this blog and wants an exercise program like Renee describes, check out the book "You Are Your Own Gym". It does use some equipment, but it's all things like chairs and milk jugs full of water. The daily routine is intended to last 20 minutes.

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  2. Thanks for that Katherine! I'll have to get that. I've been on the road more and more these days, and while I've been (slowly) keeping up on my Couch to 5k program, I'm going to have to start adding to this!

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