Part 2 - Long awaited finishing...

Part 2 starts with some fun, after the horse trial while I was hanging around waiting for friends to leave, we got talking, and it was decided that we were to take the horses 15mins away and go for a swim in the lake.

I've never been "swimming" with a horse, although I have taken them in water at the beach, and further to that Pencil has only ever seen water jumps!

So much fun had in the water! And without further waiting... Pictures!!

It was absolutly beautiful to take them down to the lake for the swim! I had a absolute blast :)

Sadly, Megz went home, and I took Pencil to a friends place who backed onto Landcorp land... so that evening Pencil got to stay in a paddock instead of a yard, which I was so relieved about.

The next day, we went for a ride through the Pine Trees on the landcorp land... was a fantastic ride. I did think it was going to be a stroll in the trees, but the rider I was with had a different idea, and we blasted up a few hills giggling and whacking trees out of our face, and trying to avoid blackberry!

Come Tuesday morning, the day for the clinic with Lucinda Green (nee Palmer), I was pretty darn nervous.

There were a myrid of things at the Clinic I felt I did wrong, but better I did it wrong and got things corrected and got my moneys worth, rather than sitting there watching others being taught.

I was going to go to into details about everything, but its not that important to be honest. What is important is what I took away from the clinic.

The first day was to focus on having the horse looking for the fence, looking where they are going - getting them to search out the next fence..... Pencil and I were NOT very good at this.  I also got told off that he keeps pulling me out of the saddle (not new).  I got yelled at a bit for letting Pencil go past a skinny. If they skip off the side, I got told to not keep on riding and circling back, because you haven't made a correction of any type - even re-inforced that its ok to do that. So I had to slam on the breaks, and back the horse up. Then jump it again.  Once that was sorted out better.... it was a foward canter over a fence, a few strides over a skinny, over a side of a corner then out the back side of a double... the line was something else! We got it reasonably easy... but not by looking for the fences... so had to do it again.

Day two, was interesting - within the first 10mins I was yelled at "didn't we spend two hours teaching you this yesterday!" (blush).  If you walk down a bank, you walk up a bank. If you trot down a bank, you only trot UP the bank (or any combination) was the first words of advice, or it leads to teaching the horse to rush. So I was walking up and down and in and out for a bit... and then promptly got asked how often I fall off... shoulders back - I was going down the bank before the horse was. So that got addressed. What I liked about using the banks, was how we had to leave the horses completely alone. They had to make a mistake.. and it related straight to the water fence later on. To teach a horse to go up/down banks we were told to pretty much drop the contact and just sit. Do nothing. Let the horses figure out how to get the legs out, especially with waves in the water. Something I had been thinking I needed help with as Pencil had been leaping out into water jumps. But once he stumbled, and steped, leaped and scrambled.. (it was only 2 times up the bank really) he figured it out and was now nicely popping up and down banks, and the water jump.  Focus on where we were going was not forgotten, with the use of two drums and a narrow gap to get the horses through on the up and down side of the water.

Had a good galloping and play to finish off with, and a summary with Lucinda. We both agreed my horse is a little thick at times :) .... and that I'm a bit slow on it as well LOL... in my reactions that is. RIDE Pip RIDE.