Gilly in the indoor

 Gilly and I went to Stanleyville on Friday for another lesson. (only have two photos that were good, it was a dreary day and camera didn't like the lighting, I guess) He has been loading up just fine in the trailer and seems to like going for a ride, it's only about 11 miles over there from home.
My friend telling me what she wanted me to do with Gilly and he was very intent on watching her. What a personality this horse has!
We worked on me getting a better seat riding this big boy. I had to ride with no stirrups for awhile, boy was that hard work. I did hold onto the grab strap for support, I felt like I was bouncing all over the place but she said I was staying in the saddle.

Learning the feel of having my legs in the right place, she placed them correctly so I could feel where I needed to be. She was really helpful, to have a person on the ground to watch and correct things that I can't see I am doing wrong and that's a lot. We worked on riding without reins, scary at first but Gilly did really well. We had an hour lesson, when I got off I was pretty sore from using muscles that didn't used so much in awhile.
I don't know if I will be back at the stable arena again, my little friend is leaving and a new manager is taking over on Monday. My friend will still be in the area so hopefully we can still take some riding lessons at home, weather permitting. It sure would be nice to have an indoor....sigh...only if I win the lottery!!!

Saturday morning I was sooooo sore from all the work that Gilly and I did. Today my husband and I are just hanging out and taking it easy, enjoying a relaxing Sunday afternoon. A real treat, we don't usually take days off, always something to do around the farm. We did a lot yesterday so today is a good day to just put things on the back burner and do nothin'!


Lacy update. Lacy is still lame the new shoes don't seem to be helping. At first the farrier was going to put some pads on but decided to wait and see if just the shoes would help. He is coming again on Tuesday and will put the pads on then; if this doesn't work then she will probably have to be retired from riding. I don't know what Kim will do then. So sad she is only 12 years old and that's still a young horse, I hope this works.
Jane

Me and Gil cantering

OK, here it is, are you ready for a good laugh? A video of me cantering Gilly and Vicki instructing me. I really don't like posting pictures or videos of me, ugh, but I am doing it anyway. Maybe with all this riding I will lose more weight, some has already come off.......a lot more to go, poor Gilly.

I rode him for two hours yesterday, both of us got a workout and both of us were tired when we got finished.....heck I'm still tired today. Riding him is a lot of work; he is pretty lazy so you really have to work to make him go. It really helps to have a ground person who knows what they are doing. Trying to learn all of this dressage is hard work so someone telling me what to do is a really big help! Wish I had an instructor everyday.

Still in the hay field, wish I could turn this into an arena. Would have to shorten it up so the gas well wasn't in it though. I figure I can ride in it as long as I am not tearing up the grass.....I'll have Gilly tip-toe! LOL I'll just pretend I have an arena and make that work, he doesn't care where we are. He did like the shade along the fence line where we stopped, me too!

Cantering in the field

Here is Gilly doing a medium trot; he can do much better but was really tired from all the work we did today. Lots and lots of cantering, some 20 meter circles at the canter. Me on him, wow! He is a hard horse to ride because of all the suspension he has and trying to ride a trot or canter in a circle has been hard. But today I did pretty well, we need a lot of work. Where we were riding today we in our hay field, Gilly needs a lot of room to move the round pen is not the place to work. Since I don't have an arena we thought we would work in the hay field since we cut hay last week....nice. Haven't told Mike that I was working in there but I don't think we will hurt it.
I have some video of me riding him at the canter but need to edit a lot out before I post it. I am not a big fan of watching myself ride, ugh!!! And I do have some still pictures too.
The field we are in is right by the road to our house and there is no fence. I still can't believe that I am cantering him without a safety net so to speak but he is doing really well. When you set down in the saddle and stop moving he stops too, good boy!!! Oh, how I love this horse!!! :-)
~Jane and Gilly~

More lessons and a ride in the woods

Run, run, run!!! When I take Gilly and Pokey to Kim's there is always an hour or so of play time! They are all so happy to see each other and have a grand time running from one end of the field to the other.
Gilly is really trotting out here, he is normally in the lead or at least thinks he is; sometimes the other two turn and go the other way. Pokey had to come back to the spot he is in now and have a roll in the dry dirt. That little guy LOVES to roll in dirt!
After a wild run through the field they had to stop and have a grooming session. I'll tell you looking at those teeth and hearing them snapping I am glad that's not my skin he is working out on!!! Ouch! They stood for 20 minutes chewing on each other. What did Pokey do, he just stood back and watched, then went off in search of another dusty spot to roll in.
"Oh, here we go again, they want me to get back inside that big white box! I don't know about that, maybe I'll only go in part way this time"
One foot in............
Oh, mom has a treat maybe if I stretch my neck out realllllly far.............

Lacy's turn! She didn't want to go in either and had several fits and smacked her head above the door....Ouch!!! Gave herself a pretty good goose egg on her forehead. This is not going as smoothly as we had hoped. So far Gilly is the only one that got all four feet in the trailer.
After the lessons Kim and I decided to go for a ride in the woods. A beautiful day to ride too. This is an old road up on the ridge about our houses; nothing goes up here but ATV's and horses.....Gilly and Lacy that is. Gonzo and Lucy are behind me and Gilly. I sure do hope we have several more days like this, no flies to bug us and 70 degrees............beautiful!!!!