New year, new possibilites

I know I haven’t posted much lately. One positive note on that is that it isn’t like in Bosco’s days that I didn’t post because he was falling apart. Finorio is not (don’t jinx it!)

This past year we have come a long way. We have managed to get deeper into his body issues, and training wise we have made huge leaps.

2018 has just started, but I have made some huge life changing decisions on a personal level. Big changes are coming, more on that as it draws nearer. I am not going to write lots about what we have done the past year, but thought I’d show some pictures. 

Lesson with Andrew

This autumn has been very difficult in terms of training. The past 1-2 months has been crap weather wise. First we had lots of snow, but the four wheeler managed to become a three wheeler before we managed to get the snow off the arena. So by the time it was fixed the snow had frozen and it was impossible to do anything with the arena. The weather has been cold, but warm during the day so the snow has melted, but not warm enough to get some softness to the ground. So the past few weeks it has been like asphalt everywhere, and the paddock just looks like the landscape of the moon. This means that our training conditions has been less than perfect, to say the least.

From the clinic in August

Spring feeling and trainings!

As usual I’m fairly bad at blogging regularly, but now so much is happening that I’d like to write some of it down.

This winter has been quite nice with cold temperatures and lots of snow. Unfortunately this has been working against us as Finorio has not been 100% in his body. Some time in January I had a few days of just flying with him. Riding in the snowy outdoor arena was just great, we did passage and the canter was so easy to sit so I could do nothing but laugh as I enjoyed myself. Then it all changed, set off by Finorio making the decision to roll in the snow, close to the fence. He must have caught the electrical fence and got stuck some way. The damage on the fence was not much, and he had only stepped on himself so just a small wound that healed very quickly. But he was very different to ride, the canter was not flowing and no proper connection in trot. 

2015, what did we do?

My blogging might not have been as good as I wanted it to be. I might try to get better in the new year, but we will see how motivated I am. Here I wanted to give a recap of what we have been trough the past year.

More lessons

The last weekend of November we had another visit from Arne. This time we had to have the lessons indoors as the outdoor arena was frozen. The indoor arena is 20×20 meter, so there is just about enough space for the horses.

I didn’t have much time to write from the lessons, but we worked with sidemovements, mostly shoulder in and travere. By the second lesson Finorio was bucking and being silly, this usually only happens when there is something not completely right in his body. The next day he was lame so it might have been the same thing bugging him on sunday. Usually hes blocked somewhere when he does that. A day of rest, and a long walk the following day and he was fine.

Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Stretch those hips!

and back in place

Nice bend, but rider is still sitting on the outside

trying to get all the aids right

Changing rein in trot

Good pony

Bending the neck of the horse with use of my seat, Finorio sleeps

Before the last lesson, nice picture

Finorio feels watched

Arne says hi

Working on sidemovements

Not so focused

Protests

Back to work!

Long time, no see? Lots have happened since last time. First of all, Finorio is back home again. I’m back at work and mostly back to normal. We weren’t able to do much training before moving him back home, but the week after we had to prepare as much as we could for the weekend. This weekend we had a visit from Arne Koets who has worked as a rider with the Fürstliche Hofreitschule in Bückeburg, Germany.

We had one lesson saturday and one lesson on sunday. Teaching wise it was quite different to what I’m used to, without me being able to actually pinpoint what was so different. As the things we did weren’t really different, but perhaps just the teaching style was new. In the first lesson there were some misunderstandings that made me become quite frustrated. After clearing up my confusion as to the aids and which exercises we were doing, everything became slightly easier for my brain to wrap around.

Lesson with Rui Almeida

Rui is an instructor who works at Morgado Lusitano in Portugal. We had a joined session with another horse and rider. This was a mare and Finorio found that pretty interesting.

We started by getting out of the trailer and Finorio got worked up at once because the paddocks were in the forrest so you couldn’t really see the horses all the time. I managed (with some difficulties) to tack him up, he reared the saddle off once and did not really agree to take the bit.

There goes April

For some reason I haven’t had much time for blogging. I don’t think I’ll try to go through everything we have done, just show it through pictures. (Thats how lazy I am 😉 )

By the end of easter I had another lesson in long reining, Finorio was sligthly more unstable, but also better in some aspects. We just need more training.

Now he can be tied up to the trailer and actually relax in a new place

Andrew clinic january

Better late than never?

24th of January we were lucky to get yet another place at the Andrew Murphy clinic in Moss. The day arrived with lots and lots and lots of snow, and the roads were not very friendly to my 4wd, so I was very happy to be driving with the horse trailer as well 😉

This time I tried to load him on my own, by just having one lunging rope on one side of the trailer and turn him into the rope to get it behind him. After a couple of tries I actually managed to do that and I could give the rope to Anne and she could lead him into the trailer as I closed behind him. Good boy!

Finorio’s first lesson

This saturday I had half a spot on the december clinic with Andrew and it was about time to get Finorio out and into the world of clinics. I have travelled with him two times before, once to get a treatment, and once to the veterinary clinic for a check up. Both of these times were this summer and he hasn’t been that easy to get on the trailer. Because of this I was worried about getting him on the trailer. I was hoping to get some help from friends, but as it turned out everyone was busy this weekend, and I was more than a bit too late to ask. Luckily Finorio’s previous owner was home and were able to help me.