Several people I have asked recently to recommend a good equestrian book have suggested one called Celebrity Jumping Exercises compiled by Caroline Orme It is filled with SJ and XC jumping exercises submitted by professionals such as Pat Burgess, Matt Ryan, and Leslie Law. With the help of a few well timed hints I ended up unwraping this on Christmas day! (How on earth did Santa guess!?!) Today we attempted an exercise submitted by Yogi Breisner. To begin with you place 5 poles at bounce distances (10-12ft between each pole) in a straight line, and trot through them. These are not paced for trot so trotting through them is aimed at getting your horse thinking about where to put his feet to not hit the poles. Soap trotted through cleanly on both reins, and tried hard to work out how to get to the opposite end without touching the poles. Next you start to canter through them, and this really makes them stretch for the stride in order to make the distance. I did this on both reins a few times and he quickly got the hang of it, grunting as he made the effort to stretch. The next phase is to build each pole into a x-pole one by one, making sure you jump the exercise equally on both reins. Finally you will have a line of 5 bounces (I could only comfortably fit 4 bounces in our 20x40 arena). I finished here as Soap had really made an effort to understand the exercise and do his best, but if you want to progress further you can remove fence 2 and 4 and turn fence 3 into an upright. This book looks to have some really constructive exercises in it and I plan to try most of them, and will be blogging as and when on how they go. click images to enlarge, video of exercise below

Having missed out on our latest dressage competition due to the snow and ice on the steep hill from our yard making it too dangerous to drive on I was determined that it wasn't going to stop me schooling at home aswell! I arrived at the yard on Thursday to find the menage full of even more lovely fluffy snow! The ground underneath wasn't frozen so if I could clear the snow enough it would be fit to ride on. I car jacked my mother's 4x4, attached the rake, attached a pallet to that for extra weight and got driving. After 20mins of some very promising flat work from the Nissan the menage was cleared, and ready to ride in later that day...

...but later that day the weather had other plans, and the heavens opened so all my effort had been in vain. The next day twice as determined not to have my plans foiled by the weather AGAIN and expecting to be able to use a freshly raked menage I arrived to find ICE! All the festive white stuff had been rained on, walked on, compacted and frozen turning the whole yard into a huge ice rink! All the horses had to stay in, and everyone was tentatively mucking out shuffling back and forth to the muck heap trying not to fall over! Soap and Jack's stables are just feet from the menage gate so I set about chopping at the ice with a shovel to clear them a little path so that I could get them into the school to work them. Once cleared and gritted they could safely get to the menage to stretch their legs, and I could finally ride!

Riding Jack over the past few weeks has been both uplifting and disappointing in equal measures, but yesterday we had a small breakthrough. Soap is very quick to react to light aids but Jack is the polar opposite. At present because he is not established in self carriage it takes A LOT of leg to get him to work properly. Despite going to the gym in an effort to get stronger and fitter I find that after 30mins schooling him I am pooped!...but then I found my spurs! I had totally forgotten I had a pair of spurs as wearing them on Soap would send him sky high, but with Jack they are just the little extra help I need to get him moving without looking like Penelope riding Kipper! He managed some really lovely, light, on the bit work, starting to push through from behind and use himself and he felt like a milllion dollars. Sadly as he is still building up all the right muscles to work effectively he can only manage about 15mins of this work, but those 15mins were fab, and a total transformation compared to how he was working 2 months ago. Pleased with his progress I was looking forward to taking him to a low key dressage competition today for a couple of walk and trot tests, but when I looked out of my window.....SNOW! The yard is at the top of a steep hill, and many liveries couldn't make it up the hill in their cars because the road had become very slippy so there was no chance we could make it down the hill with the trailer. To cheer myself up at the loss of my entry fees, and missed outing I have been wrapping xmas presents and watching the puissance at Olympia on BBC iplayer, amazing!

I couldn't resist! It is Christmas after all!...

Jack is back in regular work now that the issues he had with his feet (which were a result of the long time he spent on box rest) have finally been sorted, so work has begun in ernest to turn him into an event horse! In prep for a dressage competition we have next week I hired the indoor school at the same venue and took him there for some schooling. The last time he went out was May and he came out the trailer at that show in a muck sweat and quivering like a leaf! It took about 20mins of walking him in hand to calm him down enough to tack up and ride, but he remained highly strung and tense for the whole time at the show. This time he was still very hot and sweaty when we arrived, but he calmed down much quicker, and behaved very well (with just one exciting bucking moment!) and produced some really nice work for him. He was not convinced about getting back in my friend's lorry to go home, but after a while he changed his mind. I am really pleased with how he is progressing, and think that his traveling hang ups will resolve the more he goes out and realises he's not going to be hitting the point 2 point track as soon as he comes out the box!

Now that Jack is in work I have begun concentrating on building him up and improving his muscles so that he works from his quarters to his shoulders, rather than pulling himself along with his shoulders. Above the first pic is him back in Feb and the next two were from yesterday. I think he looks much better, and you can see his 'two engines' (shoulders and bottom) are now much more balanced. Hopefully in another 9 months he will look even bigger and stronger. click images to enlarge