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~

Gilly's lesson

Wednesday Gilly and I got our lessons and this is my instructor riding Gilly. The little girl who was riding Gilly in the last post was her granddaughter, who will be in the 5th grade this fall. She rides hunter/jumper ponies and is a very good little rider; her mother is also a riding instructor, teaching jumpers.

Since the rain has made things here pretty sloppy we do a lot of training on the road in front of the house. As I have said before there is hardly any traffic here so this works out well. It would be so nice to have an indoor arena but I don't see this every happening! LOL Unless I happen to win the lottery or something.

Look at the arched neck! Gilly can really look good when he wants to. I need to get some pictures of him when he sees my neighbors pony, talk about strutting your stuff. He can put on a show then!


See behind Gilly the road, I have a long way to ride up and down close to the house, don't have an arena either but I find places to work him. The road is a hard top but soft enough that he can work on it. We are careful when it's wet though, he can still slip if not careful.

Gilly had never had a little person ride him before and he wasn't sure just what to think about it all at first. He did some side stepping but she got on him anyway. After he figured out that she could ride he was OK with that. He liked her but wasn't sure about that small human being on his back! I think it's good for him to have different riders, Mike even got on him once, the only man who has ever been on him.

The second picture on the last post is a BIG favorite of mine, Gilly looks huge and very beautiful! Of course I am a bit bias! I do love my big bay boy!!!!

Priceless Pictures..............

More about these two pictures later, enjoy! (click on picture to make it larger!)