Storms and rainbows

This week was my fifth week here and just as exciting as the rest!

After last weeks relationship difficulties with Paris I was over the moon when we had a play session in the play ground. i just played online, dropped my plans and concentrated on having fun like we used to do, soon Paris was having such a great time and when i drew him in from the circle game he cantered almost all the way too me! i then rode him. my idea was to get the relaxed canter Marie-Claire had been helping me with by giving him a big follow the rail so he had space to find the answer. despite having played online all over the playground Paris did not want to move away from the gate when i was mounted so i trotted him to the far corner and rested there for ages, letting him eat grass. we did this as a corners game for a while and it wasn't long before Paris wanted to head for the corners. so when i wanted to follow the rail i just focused on the next corner and just before he would start preparing to stop in the corner i swiched focus to the next corner and within minutes we were cantering the follow the rail! it was brilliant and i really felt like i had caused my idea to be my horses idea!! they next day i returned to the playground and we had a fun warm up online - Paris even jumped the masive log pile that is not meant to be a jump - it is easily a 6 foot spread! he made it look easy like a cross country horse! when i rode him he was happy to go straight to the follow the rail pattern at a lovely canter but when we headed up the third side of the field, which was up hill, he put on a lick of speed and so i said "good idea go faster and for longer!" soon he was wanting to slow down and we did a while lap of the feild at a relaxed canter and then i focused on a corner and he came to a smooth halt from canter (through trot) with just my seat aids! i was so happy i leapt off him and did the silent victory dance! I have tried to keep our playfulness in the arena too. the other day i put the tarpaulin on him and he was so calm that i thought i'd see if he was calm with it when he was walking. he was so i took my savvy string and tied the tarm together in front of his chest so he wore it as a cape and then i played circling game in walk, trot, canter and even over a jump! it was so cool to see how well he coped with it. this is a million times improved from the horse that would freeze when you put a rug on and freak if you slid it off his hind quarters.

After all of my fun days playing with Paris as his usual extroverted self it was a bit of a bummer for me to play with him yesterday and find he was back to being introverted. i kept things slow and soft online and then saddled him and decided to not touch the reins as much as possible. i asked Paris for the rein isolations (direct and indirect rein) without using the reins and was so shocked when he did them! at one point i must have been slightly wrong when i asked for indirect rein near a pole as Paris sidepassed over it instead! i was so proud of him and decided to ride a bullseye pattern at the trot to see how much i could do wothout reins. Paris did need a couple of corrections with the reins at first but it was not long before he trotted a perfect circle and then turned in and halted all from my seat cues with no reins!

Today everything was not as it should normally be. last night we had a massive storm. i woke in the night as the lightning lit the room as if someone ad the light on and it stayed lit for ages. then a roaring roll of thunder started and build up like a low flying air craft except that it lasted a long time. i felt the urge to run out and check Paris but we had had storms here nd i knew there was nothing i could do so i went back to sleep. Soon there was a knock on the door. it was Marie-Claire, the storm had scared the youngsters and they had gone through some fences and two needed to go to the vet. we were meant to be on our sleeping morning however we all got up, dressed and quickly ate something before rushing out to check if our horses were ok and then head to the stables. Paris and Rox were a little nervous and jittery but i could see no sign of physical injury. it turns out that the youngsters ran through every fence, smashed 7 wooden post and pulled out miles of electric tape wire. I teamed up with Anna and we fed the horses and performed kaka force. after we had cleared out the forests we helped muck out the stables and cleaned th food buckets. Sanne and Elvira spent the day cleaning wounds and applying bandages. by the evening when it was time to play with our horses we were all feeling physically, mentally and emotionally drained. Anna, Elvira and I teamed up for a "Can You...?" game session which was a lot of fun. it gave me the idea to ask Paris to jump a single tiny barrel - which he did! we then made a kind of living round corale (we used a corner of the arena and used a block to mark the oppsite corner of our square round corale. Anna and Elvira each manned one side and i played with Paris at liberty. when he ran off the others put pressure on him so i became the sweet spot. it wasn't long before i went from abismally poor and no connection to having him engaged, connected, doing stick to me at walk trot canter halt back up! it was a lot of fun.

this week i have also played with Riva and Tauria again. Tauria is so smart she worked out her first ever figure eight much quicker than Riva did.   they have both proven to so calm and left brained out on trail rides. Riva struggles to maintain gait on line so i am trying different techniques to make it a game as much as possible. yesterday i could not make my mind up whether to play with Riva or Tauria so i decided to go to the youngsters and see which one picked me first. Tauria came over straight away! i gave her a carrot and soon Riva was there also so i gave her some carrot too before taking Tauria for a play session. i gave them both a day off today after the storm disaster. Riva had actually jumped out onto the road and has nasty scratched all over her chest and shoulder. one nasty scrape is in her girth area so i will not be able to ride her for a while. i don't mind because her riding is better than he online which really needs to be imprived. i did spend some undemanding time with Tauria in the remains of the paddock paradise. i was looking up at the moody clouds when i spotted a rainbow. they always cheer me up and i took it as a sign that tomorrow will be a good day!

tomorrow we are planning to go on a 10 km trail ride with our own horses to a restaurant for lunch. i'm hoping it will be an uneventful ride!