Disections and Discoveries

This has been an incredible week in many ways!

On Friday, after updating my last blog post, i took Paris to Gabi for a trim. His hoof wall has grown down more connected and he has a little more oncavity in his sole, indicating that improvement is occuring, he just needs more time. So he is staying in the boots - no surprise there! but Gabi has given me some useful tips to keep the boots from causing any problems like thrush or sores.

 I then went and got Touria and played with her, Elvira filmed me. It was such a difference from the first time i played with her - we did all seven games and the circle game had slack in the line and she was maintaining gait! i asked her for sideways and she offered trot so i said "good idea, sideways in trot!" and she did it! i watched the video with the others so i could get feed back and see where i can improve. it seems that, atleast when i'm filmed, i do not give enough rewards! funny because i always have the feeling i am rewarding too much! i also realised i do too many circles, my neutral needs to be clearer and i need to hold the rope more lightly when i'm in neutral.  that way when she goes out to the end of the rope i can allow it to drift and close the hand more slowly to keep the connection without jerking on her head.

On Saturday I went for a trail ride with Elvira. She was riding Thomas' horse, Bertie, and ponying Indy for the first time so we kept the trail ride at a walk and did lots of halt back up transitions. when we where half way around the forest i felt so good, i hadn't used the reins at all so i halted (with my seat) moved my weight so Paris turned his head in lateral flexion and I undid the halter and slid it off! we carried on walking through the forest, halting, backing up, we crossed a road, went around some feilds and walked back along the road, past traffic (one car passed us - that counts as traffic here!) back through the forest track to the arena. i was so happy that i asked Elvira to take a photo. Paris was so relaxed and not at all bothered about what we had acheived.

On Sunday we went for another trail ride, again Elvira was ponying Indy from Bertie. Anna came with us riding bareback with one rein on Kalhua who has a lot of issues with being ridden. she has been working on doing freindly game to build his confidence with having someone on his zone 3 and it has been going well in the round pen so she thought she would join us for a quiet walk on the trail. unfortunately he got very emotional and was sweating and starting to panick so Anna made the Savvy decision to get off and take him back. Paris was again going well so I slipped the halter off and we carried on bridleless again. this time, when we went around the fields i asked for some quiet trotting and he was great! he came back to walk from my seat and we had a relaxing uneventful trailride.

On Monday we discussed our goals for the week and I said that i want to introduce canter. i want him to be calm in the canter and to come back to trot from my seat. i knew i would have to ride with a bridle again because his canter very easily tips into his gallop when we are out. Gabi decided to join us as she thought Paris' energy and fast pace would be a good influence on her left brain introvert. it certainly was! when we reached the big fields Paris lead the way with two laps of a fast endurance trot, really big ground covering strides that he never does in the arena. once he was maintaining the rythm we went into canter. my plan was to sit the canter, whatever he gave me, not ask for more or less but sit it and stay cool until he was able to think and steady up. Before we had began the ride i had taken him into the arena to push his buttons and he had leapt into a full gallop online for countless laps, on both reins! so when i asked for canter he again leapt forward, just as eager to go despite the heat and having already galloped untold laps. we went five laps around the big Scout Field before Paris asked to slow to a trot! we gave them a lap in walk to catch their breath and changed rein. again i asked for canter and this time he took off so fast i was caught by surprise and left behind the movement. i quickly got back into it and we flew down the field so fast i could not really steer him and he cut a massive corner and overtook the other horses who had decided to avoid racing us by only doing half of the field. after four laps we had a steady but ground covering canter. he was soaked with sweat and brething hard but full of life and sparkle. he had done what he had not done for a long time, what he was bred to do. he walked home beautifully and i put him in the arena to roll and relieve himself of the itchy sweat. i came out with his dinner and he still had the energy to nicker and trot over to me! i just couldn't help but marvel at his power - he was capable of all this and he wasn't even fit!

Tuesday i wanted to give Paris a rest from the canter trail ride and was itching to do some real play with him in the arena. he was just as energetic on the circles and i started asking for changes of direction. i made a game of it that if he missed the oppertunity to change direction i "closed the door" behind him, meaning i would tag the ground behind him as he passed behind me. in no time at all he leapt in the air and did a flying change to change direction! i stopped and let him get his breath and we left the arena. we headed for the round pen and i let him be at liberty. i asked for some stick to me but he was still so energetic that he could not hold himself back and he shot forward, i encouraged him to go out faster and then repeated the change of direction signal... and he did it! he gave me the most amazing change of direction at liberty! it was a simple change but it was correct! we played together with stick to me and i'm sure he was having as much fun as i was! i couldn't resist and i stood on a barrel - he sidepassed over to me and i popped on with just a neckstring around his neck. we did walk halt backups and a lovely figure eight around the barrels. i hugged him and slid off and sat on a barrel. Anna was taking lots of cool photgraphs and i especially love the one where whilst i was sitting next to him he got down and rolled and as he was about to get back up he really looked at me. it was such a magic moment caught on camera!

Wednesday was a whole new kind of awsome! after lunch we gathered in the stables where a table had been set up in the grooing area. on the table was a selection of tools and Thomas walked in with the lover leg of a horse. first we analysed th hoof from the outside and predicted what we would see inside! it was so cool to know that we would soon have confirmation of whether we were right or wrong! then Thomas got a knife and cut into the white line of the hoof. it was really hard to do showing how strong the connective fibres between the hoof wall and the sole really are. as he got through a little blood seeped out. next he fixed the leg to the table with a vice and used nippers to peel the hoof wall from the hoof. the hoof wall is so elastic that we could see how it functions to hold everything together. we all took turns to pull the hoof wall a little to really feel the tensile strength before Thomas managed to remove it entirely and place wood inside it to stop it shrinking. The sole easily came away from the foot revealing how it fitted into the laminae and upper hoof like a jigsaw peice. the internal structure of the frog was so fascinating to see and we cut into the digital cushion and looked at the hardened cartilidge fibres and the soft fatty tissue that formed it. the lateral cartilages were surprisingly hard in comparison. by this point Thomas was overcome by the smell of the leg. Gabi was standing back and Elvira was sitting down as the smell had caused her to feel a bit nauseous. Thomas was beginning to peel the skin off and i was hovering over his shoulder like a kid at christmas, fascinated as the first layer of tendons began to be revealed. Thomas asked if i wanted to take over and i jumped at the chance. i used the standing knife to seperate the skin from the tendons and peeled it off completely. i then cut through the tendon sheafs and explored the leg, following the tendons and working out how they worked. as i detatched each layer a new wonder was revealed. i was surprised by how it appeared that only one tendon had a real role in lifting the heal but a large fanning network of tendons worked together to lift the toe - it was really hard to pull the tendons to simulate the correct movement of a heal first landing and really made me realise how a small injury could influence the movement of the horse and development of the hoof structures.  i then cut away the tendond to revel the bones and cartilidge underneath. the deep digital flexor tendon ran all the way into the digital cushion, forming a unction over the navicular bone. i found it curious that the groove on the navicular seemed to form the starting point for the shape that later turns into the frog! the bones revealed arthritis with corresponding yellow colouring on the cartilidge. it was so cool to feel the various stages of calcification on the bones. the hoof had a crack all the way from the coronet to the ground. Gabi said they had tried everything to heal the crack so she wanted to see if it was caused by permanent internal damage. when the hoof wall was removed it revealed that the laminae corresponding with the crack had formed a hard scar like column. after the disection we boiled the leg for two days to remove all of the soft tissue from the bones. as the only person with a stomach for it, i was asked to scrape the bones clean. as i cleaned the coffin bone i suddenly saw a groove in it exactly where the crack in the hoof wall had been! the top of the bone had a spur of bone, caused by either a birth defect or permanent damage. the spur pushed into the coronet causing the laminae and horn to always grow with a flaw. it was so cool getting to see how everything worked. i was starting to have ideas and make realisations about things and marvelled at the amazingness that is the horse!

after the disection i had a shower and got changed before i got Paris for our canter trail ride. this time we took a gps with us to measure how fast we went. we rode a similar ride to before and found we had cantered almost 10 km! Paris hit a top speed of 41 km per hour! we got back late so i fed Paris on the lawn and went to do the evening tasks but it was dark by the time we were finished and i could not find him! i cycled in the dark trying to see as much as i could, trying to hear him but the night was full of the sounds of animals rustling in the trees. Anna and Elvira came to help me. Anna went for the mule whilst me and Elvira explored the small forest by the pond. unfortunately with only the light of my little torch the small but overgrown forest soon had us disorientated, the brambles grabbed our clothes and the roots tripped us up. finally we pushed our way out onto the road and saw the head lights of the mule come toward us. Anna picked us up and we drove around by the saddle horses where we saw Paris standing by the gate. The saddle horses were excited by the strange horses and galloping around their field and Paris was racing up and down the fence trying to follow them. he had a pinick on and ran past us at first. i got out of the mule and whislted at him he turned to me and ran over. i grabbed his rope and he skitted about as i started out for home. he soon calmed a little and i got im back to his pasture.

Yesterday I woke up and my back hurt so much i couldn't sit up. i had to roll out of bed and i asked if i could work buckets as i would not be able to do kakka force quickly. i took pain killers and massaged muscle rub into my back. i decided not to play with horses so i fetched Sesame, the hairiest of the youngsters. he had a mop of dreadlocks in his mane and tail, so bad that a couple of locks in his mane had knotted up together completely. he is also nervous about the shower so i had my work cut out. Sesame is inately LBE and he showed that although he was skeptical he was also curious about the shower. i decided to use reverse phychology and walked in and straight back out of the shower. i did this several times and showed him that the door was always open and he was not going to be forced to stay in the shower. next i had the water running and i repeated the walking in and out until he was offering to stand in the shower. when he did i gave him a carrot and lead him out of the shower. i tied him in the grooming area and went and got the shampoos. i then lead him into the shower and played with the hose. i gave him a carrot everytime he touched the hose and soon he was trying to touch it even as i hosed his mane. i lead him out of the shower and massaged shampoo into his mane and then lead him in to rinse it off. i was stunned at how quickly he got over his skepticism but then i thought about it and it was not a surprise. dignity is the most important thing for a left brained horse and he did not want to be forced. as soon as i showed him i would not force him but had an interesting game to play he was happy to be showered. after i had finished brushing his mane and tail i showed him to Gabi. she told me it was the first actual shower he'd had because before he had only had his feet washed and it had been rather task oriented which he had not enjoyed.

today we went for another canter ride, i played with Paris, Touria and Riva. tomorrow Thomas and Gabi have a big surprise planned for us...

Trail rides!

this past week has definately been about trail riding!

With Paris' fetlock related lameness i have been playing it safe and building up his strength with straightlines on trail rides. last week i had some really good walk halt back up transitions so my challenge to myself this week was to add some trot. Elvira went away for a few days so i also decided to have a go at "ponying" her 12.2 hh pony, Indy. usually people would practice this in the arena first but as I am not allowing Paris to do any circles i decided to give it my best shot straight on a trail ride! my first challenge was to get the two horses to the student stables - Indy is in the student herd where as Paris is in the gelding herd. I went to Paris first and put his hoof boots on and then led him up to the student forest. I tied Paris to a tree, worrying how he would be, picked up Indy's halter and headed into the student horse pasture. At first Indy wasn't sure about coming to me, but i imitated Elvira's way of calling her and used the "draw". she soon decided to come and i haltered her and led her back to Paris just in time - he was just starting to get a panick on and had wraped an extra coil around the tree but when he saw me he stopped, calmed down and waited for me.

i tied Indy in the student stables and tacked Paris up (I miss our pre-ride warm up but it's only temporary) and then lead the pair of them to a log. i held Indy's rope as i mounted Paris and then managed to drop it! with a couple of attempts i managed to use my carrot stick to lift her rope off of the log and then position her next to Paris. the first thing she did was walk behind Paris and he felt her rope and yeilded very quickly in a hind end disengagment. he was pulling faces and being bossy toward Indy so i started asking him to back up. as i did i asked indy to do the same, sometimes using my carrot stick to wiggle her lead rope closer to her head. as we moved off Indy would try to lag behind and eat grass - i popped her on the bottom and she would shoot forward and then i used the carrot stick to shake her lead rope if she went too far forward. soon Indy found the sweet spot at Paris' side and was putting effort in to staying there and i could do walk halt backup transitions with the pair of them. we walked up the road, then around the Scout and Canter Departure fields. Sanne was riding Tasja who got rather worked up and was soon doing circles around us in working trot. Jo France was following us on Bertie who she was riding in the bareback pad. he kept stopping to eat grass and then rushing to catch up with everyone and even gave her a couple of canters. Indy was so left brained and Paris was coping really well until i gave them a grazing break to allow Sanne more time to calm Tasja down before we left the field. Paris started pawing and getting very impatient and made it clear that he is inately an extrovert! I headed back home with Jo France and Sanne went for a longer ride around the woods to get Tasja to be more left brained. I was very pleased with how quickly Paris had adapted to leading another horse and had accepted that a lot of what i was doing had no meaning for him. a couple of days later i took Paris and Indy out again, this time alone. I was ready to introduce trot to Paris' trail rides and Elvira had mentioned she wanted Indy to trot so I took them back to the big fields where we had space and played a follow the rail at the trot. Paris leapt into a massive endurance trot, with medium trot strides far too big for little Indy to match so she hopped into canter and stuck beside us, looking at us with what i can only describe as a pony grin! she absolutely loved it. at one point Paris took a couple of canter strides that were no faster than his trot. i asked him back and kept him doing laps of the field with a view to having him find a more comfortable, steadier and calmer trot. unfortunately my plan was brought to a halt twice, firstly because my stirrup fell off and i had to dismount, fix it and re-mount (not easy when you have two horses trying to eat grass) and secondly because one of his hoof boots came loose and was flapping about. again i had to dismount, fix things and re-mount. i then took the pair of them back home via the long route passing the student horse pasture so that they had time to cool down after all their exercise.  Since then Elvira has returned and has been practicing ponying Indy from Bertie. I have been trying to help Paris find a calmer trot on a loose rein on the trail rides - it's amazing how much more forward he is out of the arena. i am finding it tricky to be really strong in my seat, and to keep my steady rythm and have him match me. it is so easy to slip into matching his increasingly fast and irratic pace. we are getting much better and i can feel all my muscles where i am really using myself! yesterday our trot on the trail ride was much improved. as we rode across the last farm fields on the way back to the arena i felt his mind go home as it always does. i was doing walk halt back up transitions (we had been doing trot halt back ups in the forest!) but he was feeling sluggish and reluctant in the backuop and then springing off into the walk as soon as i he felt me think about moving on. he was still at least a 6 on the impulsion scale so I had the idea to turn him around and back him up all the way home. my thoughts were that he would find a reason to backing up and get him really thinking of going backward rather than forward - tricky for a forward-aholic. i was very strict in only asking for the back up when he was not backing up - back up is a gait and i want him to learn his responsibility to maintain it as he does the walk trot and canter. i thought about how in riding we keep whatever gait we are doing in our body and felt a massive improvement when i was backing up in my body. he was starting to give me more and more strides of back up but it took us at least 100m of back up before he suddenly got it and gave me several massive purposeful strides of back up. i halted in my body ready to spring off and reward the change in his thinking but he went crooked and started to turn so i straightened him and asked for the back up again. he gave me the massive backup again and this time stayed straight as i halted and leapt off. we then turned for home and i gave him his dinner. i'm really looking forward to seeing if this makes any alteration in his back up - i may have to do it more but it really made me think how sometimes we just don't do things for long enough.

tomorrow we are planning to do the ride to the lakeside restaurant that we never got to do!

Riva - my poor baby has been lame and so i have mainly been concentrating on trying to clear up her mudfever. yesterday i checked her trot and she seems quite a bit better - the heat and swelling in her fetlock has gone. her mudfever just does not seem to be getting any better!

Touria - in many ways although being my youngest and greenest horse is my main squeeze as she is the only one i can play with and ride! she has been getting very confident. last week we had our first ever canters which were so cool so at the start of this week Gabi took up to the fields. Touria had been very slow when i first started riding her but we found when she gets to e in the lead she really has a forward going pace and the others had a job to keep up with her endurance trot. Gabi had the idea of putting her in the lead and asking for canter on the field to see if she would take it better. i could feel her really enjoying herself on the field and i took the lead and as we rounded the bottom corner of the field to head back up the hill i asked for canter - what i got were thirty strides of bucking and broking! at one point both my stirrups were gone and i was sent high in the air but i managed to keep my balance straight keep her between my legs and keep asking her forward until she stopped bucking. It was the most incredible rodeo experience i have ever had! I just couldn't help but be impressed with myself that i hadn't fallen off! after that everytime Salvia, her herd mate, came near Touria would pin her ears and try kicking, to which Salvia turned to kick back! In the herd Touria is the omega, she is kept at the back by all the other horses. it is interesting to see how the confidence of having a human on her back and going in front of the others has triggered her to challenge her position in the herd! it is also very obvious that she was not respecting my leadership and was having a whale of a time playing as if i was not even there! on the way home she was thinking of getting to the grass and passed the horsebox so close she crushed my leg against it. i had seen it coming but had no steering at that point! so the next day i had a short online session with her in which i took her into the round pen with the 45ft line. i wanted her to maintain canter without bucking and figured that in the round pen on such a long line we would not need to worry about her also keeping slack in the line which we are still playing with. i played a game of tagging the spots where she stopped and then i would change direction everytime she broke gait. she gave me a fantastic 2 and half laps of forward canter on the left rein. i decided to reward that and make a mental note to look for the same on the right rein the next day.  so the next day we went back in the round pen and i asked her for sideways all the way around. i wanted to make sure i kept her mind and didn't turn the round pen into the place where she just mindlessly runs in circles. I would ask her to back up and she kept making the assumption we were circling and turn to the left so i would disengage her hindquarters, send her sideways from zone one, back her out straight and leave her to lick and chew. soon i had her attention and i could actually send her back and then on a circle to the right. she is so smart, she remembered a game Gabi had played with her weeks ago where she would canter and then halt at specific points in the pen. i marvelled at her intelligence and remained passivley persistent in the rules of our new game and soon she got it - she gave me four laps of canter on both reins without bucking and then i knew we were ready to mount and ride. as i mounted she was a lot less fidgetty at the block and didn't try moving off when i mounted so i knew i had earned some respect. i checked out my lateral flexion, then i asked for a nine step back up and got the best one i had ever got form her! i then took the plunge and checked out my steering... AND WE HAD STEERING! we were doing figure eights at the walk! I had a brilliant trail ride, we all took turns to take the lead and Touria was much more calm and listening to me ven on the big field where she had done her rodeo on the previous ride. we didn't ask for canter but i could feel we were on the right track for improvment. as we were trotting through the forest Touria had a moment where she lost her footing on a small log she then stumbled over a bigger log which was actually a small tree and the branches shook which spooked her and she span 90 degrees and leapt into the bushes - i barely stayed on! it was so fast! apart from that she was very left brained.

I got to play with Sesame last week. he is one of the five year old youngsters. he is an LBE and so big he has trouble coordinating his legs, loses confidence and charges off like a steam train. i was advised to play with him on a 45ft line and use gloves - and i'm glad i did! he is a real sweetie but very powerful and can react extremely quickly! at one point i thought he was going to jump out of the arena (which he has apparantly done before!) but I found that if i was really soft in my phases he could handle it and he gave me some nice canter departures. Marie-Claire complimented me on how i played with him and said it was a pleasure to watch!

the other day i had been helping Thomas and Anna mark out the points in the field for the Honeycomb we want to build. once we were done i went to get Touria for the trail ride. i spotted a horse with black legs and white in the tail standing by Sesame and Sirius, Touria's friends. this horse was not looking at me but has a few bite marks and a messy mane that was half on one side and half on the other. i pretended not to be interested and then the horse turned to me and i rubbed the halter on it's head and slipped it on and was just asking it to turn it's head more toward me when Thoma and Anna turned up and asked me who i was haltering. i replied "Touria!" and looked and realised i was haltering Seth! Seth has the tiniest little piece of white where a star should be whereas Touria has a massice white blaze with two bits that stick out makin it look like a "T"! I rubbed Seth and took the halter off, Sanne had already collected Touria for me! I felt like such a wally that i had not even recognised my own project horse! After i had surviced the Touria rodeo Gabi made a half joke that i could ride bucking horses and maybe i would have Seth as he can be very explosive! not sure how i feel about it but as i walked away and looked back at Seth he was yawning and i felt there was some connection... who knows!

Sanne and Joke have both gone home now. it is just me, Elvira and Anna in the house. Next week we may have some American missionaries visiting us from Elvira's church. it should be really interesting! we also plan to invite Marie-Claire's husband, Peit, to dinner to discuss our ideas for a honeycomb at the Plessis! and then of course we have tomorrow's restaurant ride!

progress and problems

I have been here for over six weeks now.

last week i used my sleeping morning to watch Pete Ramey hoof care DVDs and then went to assess Paris' feet. Paris is very footy on the stones here and it has been getting worse and, when i looked at his feet, his soles, particularly in the front beneath the coffin bone, are very thin. his front feet are the worse so I put Keratex hoof hardener on him and booted him up. we went to the indoor arena and had a play session with Marie-Claire in attendance. she helped me with an excercise for a straight back up. I have realised that my efforts to improve my yo-yo keep failing because i have not been addressing the straightness issue first. distance and speed will only come when he is going back straight. i have started to play with a couple of barrels that he has to get his nose behind before he can rest.

on Sunday we all worked really hard to get our morning jobs done in time to go for the long ride to the restaurant. I cycled down to Paris who was near the gate and lead him from my bike back up to the arena. i suddenly thought he was not moving like normal, his head seemed to be moving to much but i was cycling beside him and couldn't look at him properly. at the arena i circled him and my fears were confirmed. he was lame.

Sanne came and looked at him with me, we agreed he seemed to be lame in the left fore and it was either an absess in the foot or something in the fetlock. Sanne was going on the ride so we agreed to look him over when she got back. I saw Gabi and told her Paris was lame and she told me to bring him in to the stable and she would look at his feet. we assessed him with and without boots and then with an assortment of pads. we changed his boots and found that a pair of Old Macs was the best fit for him. i was feeling quite emotional but we were all going for lunch so I put Paris in the stable and decided to cut a new pair of pads for him before when i got back.

lunch was amazing. we went to the lakeside restaurant again and the riders had arrived just before us. we had a beautiful salad starter (i had goat cheese in filo pastry with tomato), duck cooked with peach slices and I had a strawberry icecream sundae for desert. it was a beautiful afternoon and we ate outside and i was soon caught up in the high spirits of everyone else and we had a lot of fun. finally, fat and full, we headed back to de Plessis. As soon as we arrived i checked on Paris and dug out the pads and boots to make a new template, took a knife and cut out the new pads (which fit perfectly!). Paris was walking so much more comfortably in the boots. I was about to put him back in the pasture when i saw Anna with Kalhua and Joke with Rox. since he would have none of his buddies for company and i was so tired i decided to spend un demanding time with him and let him graze whilst i slept in the sun on the grass by the arena. I got my polypad as a pillow and laid down and had a couple of minutes of peace with Paris munching nearby when Elvira plopped down beside me. i moved over to share the pillow and we allowed our horses to graze nearby. then Joke asked us to hokd Rox a moment, the Sanne got back from her ride (she had made a great breakthrough and was very excited) and asked us to hold Tasja. it was impssible to sleep now we had so many horses to keep an eye on. eventually we gave up and took turns to watch the horses graze and eat their evening feeds whilst we completed the evening tasks.

On Monday we zoomed through our morning tasks. Joke had her progress report (which we are supposed to have every 6 weeks) and we cooked lunch. Joanna, a girl from France, turned up and Joke, Gabi, Thomas and Marie-Claire ended up being twenty minutes late for lunch because the progress report had over ran. Marie-Claire asked me to give Joanna (Jo France) a lesson on the seven games as she has done no Parelli before! i was excited and proud to be asked and gave Jo a tour of de Plessis before we collected Bertie. i touht her the first four of the seven games and was very impressed with how quickly she picked it up. i asked her if she wanted to learn more or absorb what we had covered. she wanted o absorb so i put on some music and allowed her to play with the first four games and got the video camera and recorded a short video of her playing so she could see her progress at the end of the three weeks.

I then went and collected Paris and took him into the arena to play. Marie-Claire had discussed our goals with us and had said cavalettis would be good for Paris but when i sent him over them he was so lame i stopped immediately. i played a little with backing through the barrels and then i played with putting the ball on his back and having it move whilst on him.  i was gutted.

On Tuesday it was young youngster day. the Osteopath was coming on wednesday so Marie-Claire asked us not to do too much with the youngsters. i played with Riva and Tauria with some gentle walk figure eights, asking them to follow a feel. Riva is so light now and Tauria is improving but still noticably heavier than Riva. I asked Riva for sideways along the fence and she kept thinking forward and lifting her leg as if to hook them on the bottom rail of the arena. finally she offered me two steps of sideways and i quit our session there. I had planned to do squeeze games with Tauria but she did the squeeze on the rail perfectly so i asked her to squeeze over the pedastal. she was very left brained, trying to squeez between me and the pedestal and then offer touch it. finally she walked across it (with three feet on it at one point) stepped off and turned and faced. i ended the session there for her too. Riva's mudfever has not been getting any better so i began a new treatment by soaking it with camomile tea to help get rid of the scabs and sooth the sore before putting Honeyheal cream on. i am now only cleaning it when it gets scabby as i do not want to keep aggravating the mudfever. Marie-Claire gave us a session on how to use the redlight phototonic therapy torches and i did Riva's standard points and then the "dragon" around her shoulder wound.

On Wednesday i spent time with the osteopath. she was correcting Salvia's hips, Riva's pelvis was tight and tilted back and Tauria was is good shape. all three needed three days rest and then a week of straight lines.

Sanne performed a vet check on Paris, we trotted him up on soft and hard surfaces, circled him and did flexion tests. he showed positive for pain in his left front fetlock. I am now bringing him in daily for minimum thre hour break from the hoof boots, cleaning his feet and massaging a relaxant rub into is fetlock. he is getting a herbal tea twice a day as well as painkillers and is being rested for a week after which i will bring him back with straight lines (in hand trail rides). i am using the red light on his standard points and also for the "navicular points" as they basically generate healing and health in the foot. Gabi, Sanne and I agree that Paris has two issues, his fetlock and his thin soles so i am trying to do all i can for both issues. he is getting very bored and cheeky at the moment. he seems to be in good spirits despite his funny way of moving.

Whilst we were checking Paris a trailer arrived. Joanna from England, who I have spoken  to by email, had arrived with her mare, Olivia. She comes from West London, where as I come from the South East and our accents are very different. it is funny hearing a fellow Brit, i realised how much my English had deteriorated into "European English"!

Thursday I played porcupine and friendly games with Riva and Tauria in the Paddock Paradise and took Riva and Paris in for their "treatments".

Friday I worked with Elvira as the other girls had their sleeping mornings. it was really hot so in the afternoon we decided to go to the lake with the horses. Riva has mudfever so i thought it was not a good idea to take her and Paris wears hoof boots and i did not want them soaked and full of pond silt so i decided to introduce Touria to the water. Bless her she was outside of her comfort zone and for a while she stood on the bank and kept looking back in the direction of "home". i went into the water and ignored her and let her natural couriosity take over. she got two feet in the water and was playing with it and touched a rock that was sticking out of the water with her nose. it was a calm stress free introduction to the water.

Saturday was my sleeping morning and i actually used it to catch up on sleep. most nights we watch Glee together (Sanne downloaded series one and two) and we have been a bit sleep deprived! so after a nice lay in i went on the computer whilst Elvira wrote a letter and then we headed to my car to go to town. unfortunately my car wouldn't start - the battery had gone flat where it had not been used for some time. Elvira tried to help me jump start the car and we had to push it up a hill first to get room to push it for the jump start. after pushing it for over 100m without success we headed for lunch leaving my car in the middle of the road (Plessis property so virtually no traffic and i was afraid we would roll it in a ditch if we tried pushing it to the side). At lunch Joke agreed to use her car to give my car a boost and I was happy I had brought a set of jump cables with me! so finally Elvira and I hit the road. my car was a bit low on petrol and needed a good drive to fully charge it so after posting Elvira's letter we decided to find a petrol station. the one in our village was closed so we went to Ecuille where we got lost trying to find the "intermarche". i spotted a (rather good looking) guy and told Elvira to ask him for directions (even though i was closer to him) she asked "ou est la intermarche?" and he looked and us and said "Anglais?" we nodded - i'm not sure what gave us away, our terrible french accents or the fact that my steering wheel was on the wrong side and i had a UK numberplate on virtually the only non-renault car in all of france! he then kindly gave us directions in English and i couldn't help but melt a bit at his french accent. we followed his directions which indeed took us to the intermarche but the cash booth for the petrol pump was closed and only payment by card was possible. very cleverly i have left my bank card in England! so we decided to drive home and come back next week.

when we got back i decided to have a drink in the house. as i tried to pull my left boot off (the ones i bought on the fast track) it got stuck. it had done this a couple of times and usually i would ask Elvira to help me and she would manage to pull me across the floor without the boot moving and then i would ask Sanne to help and she would just tug the boot straight off. Unfortunately Sanne was with her boyfriend and Elvira's arms were worn out from pushing my car all morning so i asked Joke to help me. I clung to the wall and she pulled my boot and with each tug my hip smashed into the wall and my leg got a little longer but the boot stayed on. Joke gave up and i tried again on my own to pry the boot off, after an hour i was getting desperate. i put one of my trainers on the other foot and carried the left one and decided to cycle to where Sanne was staying with her boyfriend and ask them for help. as i went past the main house Marie-Claire saw me. i explained that i was stuck in my boot and she nodded and said we just wondered if odd footwear was an English thing! i could hear Sanne talking to Jasper, her boyfriend, but was worried that i might be disturbing them at a bad moment so i thought i'd try using a ladel to unhook the torn lining that was catching my heel. it didn't work and at one point i ended up with my hand wedged in my boot and i couldn't do anything! with brute force i pulled my hand out but my foot was still firmly wedged in the boot. i finally headed up to Sanne's room and knocked on the door. Elvira joined me and i told Sanne i was stuck in my boot. at first she thought i was winding her up but when Elvira confirmed that i had been trying to get the boot off for over an hour Sanne tried her usual technique. even that would not work. she called Jasper over and i lay on the ground and wedged my free foot against a wall as Jasper pulled with all his strength. i marvelled at how my leg remained attached to my body. by this point the fits of laughter were heavily peppered with moans of desperation. Thomas came out of his room, concerned that we had chosen to have a noisey party outside his office. he soon realised that i had a problem and started offering his ideas. we had contemplated using horses to drag the boot off, the deisel mule, even the heavy duty manitoo (JCB type machine) to lift me free of my boot! in the end, after over an hour and a half of effort, there was nothing left but to cut my precious boots and free my (longer and thinner) leg. Thomas comforted me with a cup of tea and slice of apple crumble "troast". they say bad things come in threes, those were mine - car battery, petrol and boot!

.... two more weeks have passed before i updated my blog

Paris is still not 100% but the week's rest seemed to help him and i have started hacking him out at a walk to keep him on straight lines. i used the time he was resting to address his displaced behaviour with haltering and now using the trail rides to improve my walk, halt, backup transitions - this is going really well! Paris is sometimes responding to just my seat! i think another couple of weeks of this and we'll be able to ride out bridleless! Elvira is going away for 4 days (she has been trail riding with me) so I plan to keep her pony excersised by leading her whilst i ride Paris on the trailrides.

Touria has been doing fantastic - finally we are getting circles at a trot with slack in the line more often then not! her canter departures are getting less volatile too! we had a hickup when she got really heavy and i lost all steering with her and had no chance of a direct rein. i realised that i was going a little too fast, using a little too much pressure for her. she is so sensitive and easily offended, especially by steady pressure (porcupine game). i have started using the savvy string as a rope to play close range zone one procupine game as it helps me to be lighter and in turn so is she. her porcupine has improved to the point that i can lead her whilst cycling and i was very proud of myself when i cycled to the arena leading both Touria and Riva from my bike - after the massive knock in my confidence with cycling due to the accident 9 years ago, i am over the moon to even be brave enough to try leading a horse whilst cycling, let alone two! two days ago we went on the "little youngster trail ride" - Touria was doing great with the porcupine game online but it did not seem to translate to the freestyle. i attempted to be leadfile which ended up with a detour through very thick bushes. as we trotted along the edge of the fields Elvira's youngster, Sahel, popped into a canter. Salvia, being ridden by Sanne copied him and then so did Touria. all three happily cantered behind Gabi and Quimrahil who were setting a good paced trot. Gabi was thrilled that the youngsters were so happy to canter with riders and so we did a couple more canters. today i really put all my new learned tactics for lightness, steering, and being the ambassador of yes in to action and Touria had steering! we had enough steering to be lead file and trot in front for most of the trail ride! we also had another long canter. Touria was in the rear at this point and the others cantered off but Touria was happy to follow at a trot, i had to ask her for canter and she gave it to me! even then she was not worried about catching up with the others and set a lovely steady canter.  i am so happy with her progress, she is so different already from when i first played with her!

Riva has been doing really well, we finally seem to share an understanding about cantering for more than one lap! i have been using Marie-Claire's "yes, and..." strategy - if she broke gait or direction on the circle i would say oh yes lets do that and do some thing tricky like sideways, fast yoyo, squeeze between these tight cones oh how about just a circle? it's amazing how now she doesn't seem to thing breaking gait and direction are such great ideas! i was so excited by how this was all going that on Thursday I was set to play the game again. her trot seemed a little odd and she was reluctant to canter and i realised she was in physical discomfort - i asked marie-claire for her opinion and she agreed i should stop the excercise. Rivas front right fetlock has heat in it and she is now, two days later, obviously lame on it. i have clipped it and clayed it and also experimented with some new treatment for her very stubborn mud fever. i certainly am learning alot about horse care here! Riva seems to take a long time to heal anything so i have spoken to Gabi who is going to look into giving Riva more nutritional support for her immune system.  luckily i has already decided to start preparing Riva for accepting the bit. i have begun a program of putting mollasses on the bit for Paris to lick off (not wearing bridle yet). with Riva, i am seeking for her to accept my hand in her mouth first. once i can hold her tongue i will introduce her to the molassed bit too. i also played with the big ball and she was so good she seemed oblivious to anything i did with it! i still struggle with handling such a large ball, i can barely pick it up to bounce it her!

Today i was Gabi's assistant, which meant i got a morning lesson with one of my priject horses. i chose Riva so Gabi to check her leg. at lunch Marie-Claire said she would be giving a lesson at 3pm. since Paris cannot go in the arena yet, Riva had worked and was not fit, and Touria would already be doing the youngster trail ride, i had no horse for the lesson! Gabi suggested i play with Sesame as he had not done anything for a while and was always asking to be haltered. Sesame is 5 years old, and was Joke's project horse. he is 16.2 hh with a massive heavy head and a main like a rustafarian! he looks slow and lazy but quickly showed me that he is capable of great speed and power. i ended the session when he was emotionally and mentally collected enough to beable to physically manage a nice canter departure from a phase one on both leads.

i have also had my progress report. I was very happy with the nice things Marie-Claire, Gabi and Thomas saud about me. they liked my attitude and how i played with the youngsters. my focus point was to develope my emotional fitness by having more selfconfidence and not putting myself at a disadvantage for the sake of avoiding conflicts. i have since made a real effort to be open about my feelings and if i am not happy about something. it is surpisingly tricky and i realise how much i really shut down in normal life! It was also discussed that i could have the oppertunity to stay longer. i would love to stay longer because i am learning so much in ways i never expected. playing with young horses, especially young leftbrained horses really is an amazing learning experience. i do need to be home in March 2012 for my sister's hen party and to work and earn money to go to italy for my sister's wedding. i am also planning to re-take the fast track next year so that i can hopefully qualify for an externship.

loads more has happened and i just can't remember everything now! i keep getting sidetracked whenever i plan to update my blog but i intend to be stricter so i do not leave gaps!