17 November 2008

Well don't you just hate it when your kids do a better job riding than you do! Shannon has started riding Cheeky again and she rode for around 30-45 minutes last night, with dogs running around like loons in hay paddock and 12 ducks that decided to rest in the paddock next door to us, and our fellow grazer lunging their horse in the other paddock, who was having the occasional spat, Cheeky didn't put a foot wrong, lovely outline, good stop and go. Looked like a nice easy ride and its great for Shannon to be riding the two, it will so improve her riding. Cheeky is nice and settled and Shannons been working on the halt to walk, walk to trot, trot to walk, walk to halt and making sure she's getting a nice transition every time. Cheeky is enjoying her riding much better than me, as she appreciates the nice soft hands and doesn't like a strong contact. I also think the fact Shannon is a tad lighter than me helps, as she doesn't have this big heavy lump bouncing around on her back. After Shannon finished, I jumped on Rat who for some reason was quite worked up, so we started on our bending at a walk to settle, by the time he'd settled down and was listening the wind came up, then within 5 mins it was cold and the threatening clouds started to actually expell some of that water. By the time I jumped off, the heavens really opened and the rain was so hard it was actually hurting my back. Luckily Shannon had all her gear away so it was a matter of getting the gear off Rat and into the truck. So that was the extent of my ride last night. Aiming for a longer rider tonight :)