The 'I can't remember what it was called something about sins' Tag!

So I got tagged to do this by Emma and I don't like to disappoint so here we go.. (this was really hard ok)

Pride
Seven great things/strengths in your riding life
1 - I have the most amazing ponies I could ever have wanted. Granted, none of them are ever what I'd go out and buy if I was looking for my 'dream horse', but they are all absolute little crackers and I wouldn't change them for anything.
2 - I have fabulous friends who take the bitchy horsey stereotype and kick it up the ass. I love them all to pieces, they keep me sane, especially Emma and Maddie obviously, the best friends I could wish for :) 
3 -  Team Ginger. (pretty sure the top two points cover this, but shh)
4 - My horsey wardrobe. It's so colourful and matchy matchy.
5 - Sparkie. I just felt he deserved his own bullet point because he's fricking awesome. 
6- Jack. Because he would have felt left out otherwise. 
7- My personal trainer. Well, not quite, but I am so lucky to have a parent as supportive as my Dad is to me. He helps me out with the horses so much. 


Envy
Seven things you lack or covet for you or your horse
1 - 16.1hh, Liver Chestnut TB or ISH, been there done that. Please and thank you.
2 - A nice leather, custom made GP saddle for Jack. His saddle at the minute is stupidly forward cut and a bit too big for me..
3 - A little 3/4 horse lorry
4 - An arena at our yard plz. May as well throw in an indoor arena whilst your at. Oh and a lunge pen. 
5 -JER Stirrups <3 
6- Royal Blue Show Jacket. 
7- XC Colours (can we just note how this went from a horse to xc colours. Clearly I need to get a check on reality.) 


Wrath
Seven things that make you angry
1 - Myself and my riding. Like seriously, I'm very annoying you know.
2 - 85% of people in the horse world. Not even sorry. They're all just rude and stupid. Woops. 
3 -Attention seekers. For example statuses such as 'feel like I'm far too heavy for my horse nowadays :/' or 'omg *insert name here* is so naughty rearing and bucking, I'd like to see anyone else try and ride them, haha would hate to have a boring horse.' Please stfu. Please do not try to make your horse out to be something more than it is, having a naughty horse is not something to be proud of and don't try to provoke people to give you hate comments and then cry about it after. 
4 - Horses not loading is the most frustrating thing eveeeeeer. 
5 -Second to loading, is running out. Does not my nut in. I'd rather have a stopper any day!
6- People's obsession with the size of the jumps. I mean, I do put the sizes of fences on captions etc just in case people ask, but for some people it's such a huge thing, it's like every time they ride they have to document exactly how big and wide every fence is and if it wasn't big, well it wasn't worth jumping. There is nothing wrong with jumping small jumps guys! Also to do with this point is people over jumping their horse and not knowing their limits or seeing when their uncomfortable with the height your asking them for. It's all well and good jumping 1m20 but if your horse looks like it's having a seizure mid jump it's probably not worth it. 
7- People who drag their horses head in and saw their reins 
 
(really hoping not many people read my blog right about now)

Sloth
Seven things you neglect to do or cut corners on
1 - Definitely poo picking haha!
2 - Cleaning tack 
3 - Cleaning my trailer out. I really do need to sort that out, I am determined to clean it all out and paint it for the summer!
4 - Paying my livery on time. I always end up working on livery day so I can never get to the yard oops...
5 - 
6-
7-

(I got stuck)

Greed
Seven most expensive things you own for your horse/riding
1 -Sparkie.. the most expensive horse I've ever brought at £1500 (can you tell I'm a cheapskate or)
2 -My trailer. My trailer was £1200 which was more than I was hoping to spend but it's in really good condition and hasn't been used much :)
3 -Sparkie's saddle... if that can count as I won it free in a competition! However if I'd paid for it it would have been £850. I loves it so much.
4 -Micklem Multi-Bridle
5 - Brogini Boots 
6- Jack. Purely for all his bloody vet bills!
7- Jumps


Gluttony
Seven guilty pleasures or favorite items
1 - Dance Moms. Not horsey but definitely guilty. 
2 - Horseland. Wow did I actually just type that down....
3 - Being all the gear no idea. I love it.
4 - I once wrote a four page essay about laminitis. Yep. Followed by one on sweet itch. As you can tell I don't leave the house often. 
5 - My race safe. It's so in your face and over the top haha
6- I have a red show jacket that I absolutely love but I look like a complete tool jumping unaff in it.. it was only £25 don't judge me 
7- I really love Jack's breastplate, that has to be one of my favourite items


Lust
Seven things you love about horses and riding  ( things are about to get cheesy)   
1 - When you have a completely shit day and then you go up the yard and see those squidgy little faces and everything feels a bit better. 
2 - The little things, like when your horse stands still to be tacked up or behaves for the farrier or just a quite evening hack. 
3 - Making overly cheesy 'journey' videos and having a little cry
4 - When your horse does something you weren't expecting or something you've been working on for a while finally clicks for them
5 -Riding bareback in summer
6-Competing. This is a bit of a mixed one for me because I don't really love competing as much as I used to, but I'm determined I will do that again one day! Such a good feeling to jump round a jump off at top speed and get your turns on point and know that you've done a cracking round.
7- Spending time just snuggling with ponies.

Pretending to be eventers

So on Saturday we took Sunny & Sparkie to Somerford Park (try saying that fast) for some cross country schooling. Both ponies were just fab from start to finish really, I cannot fault their behaviour at all. They both loaded lovely, had perfect manners on the ground and were just all round good representatives/ambassadors for Team Ginger. Last time I took Sparkie xc was at Eland Lodge. He was so good that day, but it was clear he lacked a lot of confidence with steps and drops and jumping in and out of water. Well he was like a completely different pony, I think he believed he was a 5 star eventer! He jumped in, out, up, down, just everything, including some pretty huge drops. What a star he is! There were only a few jumps which he was hesitant about, but that was completely my fault for not sitting back and kicking on and holding him all the way to the jump; once I sort my confidence out we will be flying!

All the ponies

I have sooo much to write about, I'm not too sure if it will all fit in one blog. Well. 
So, Friday. We were super productive Friday and we worked all the ponies! First Sunny's turn. He was a very good boy and schooled nicely, very impressed with his canter work! Genuinely the best I've ever seen him canter :) Decided to have an impromptu play about with walk to canter and he picked it up really quickly, he really tried for me! Good Sunny.

Then it was Sparkie's turn for some schooling. He got to wear his polos and over reach boots and he just looked so cute I wanted to squish his face forever. He went really nice, I mean his flatwork has always been his weakest point so I know it stills needs a lot of work, but he moves forward nicely and his transitions are absolutely on point, so hopefully we can just fine tune that and get him going really well and using himself better. Little cutie he is.

maybe one day I can ride him like this!

Then after spending a good hour chasing a very persistent Ron around the field (unfortunately we are persistent too Ron, tough luck matie) we took the livers for a hack together! They were both really good boys, best Jack has hacked in a long while! Ron was also very good and had all four feet picked out without trying to give anyone permanent brain damage with the help of some pony nuts!

Twinnies doing me proud!

Blogging about multiple days here as per usual! Played Chase Me Charlie with both the twinnies this week and they were both absolutely amazing, I could not have been more proud of them! Before I write this blog, I'd just like to point out that at many points the words 'I don't think he's really a jumping horse' have been repeated many a time about both Sunny & Jack.  Also, both of them had never done spreads before and Jack saw coloured poles and fillers for the first time last month and was falling over cross poles 8 months on. Sunny was struggling over 2ft6 last month and we had sad 'that's probably his max for now'. Please absorb all that information before reading on. Okay.
 So on Monday it was Sunnys turn. He warmed up beautifully, you could clearly see how much difference just two schooling sessions had made to his balance and responsiveness. It seems that every time he jumps he improves and on Monday he was just amazing. It was the best I've ever seen him jump by a long way! His striding was ten times better and he was stretching out and using himself really well, he did courses and spreads and cantered into fences and round corners... aaah, he was fabulous. He jumped the highest both him and Emma have jumped (95cm) with ease, what a star.

 

Then yesterday it was time for Jack's turn. Well. My goal was to jump 85cm with him by the end of the year, which we achieved a few weeks ago. Now add +20cm to that. Yeh, no I wasn't expecting that one either. He too seems to get better every time I jump him, we warmed up nicely, his transitions were good and his canter was nice and balanced. We also completed another one of our goals for the year- to jump a course! Okay, it was only a three jump course, but he jumped it lovely in a consistent, steady canter the whole way round. His canter to jumps was so collected but still full of impulsion it felt beautiful to ride. We just kept putting the jump up hole by hole and he was finding it no problem and then all of a sudden it ended up on 1m5. He knocked it a few times, purely because he got a bit cocky and didn't try, so we put it down one side so I could get my confidence back a bit (me not Jack!). He jumped it easily, so we put it back to 1m5 and then wow... he was not knocking that down again haha! He absolutely flew, from the videos you would think he was jumping top of the wings haha! He made me sooooo proud. He also jumped nicely for his Mummy (as much as he would like to think otherwise) Emma as well, which was nice to see :) Super twinnies!

 

Then today Sunny and Jack went hacking together which was super fun :)

 

 

Best weekend ever!?

I mean probably not, there's a lot of rivalry for that title, but it was pretty amazing.

Saturday;

Saturday was a schooling day! I never really take pictures or blog about schooling because it's usually a half hearted attempt and nothing of great interest occurs, however on Saturday for some unknown reason we were determined to have a proper school and get some serious work done! We schooled all three, I mean we even schooled Sparkie & Sunny for a good hour and then just squeezed Jack in for a 20 minute session before work on the end. They all schooled really well and tried really hard, huge massive pats for all ponies! They were all just so polite, well mannered and happy to work hard :)

have lots of schooling photos.

 

Sunday;

On Sunday one of Emma's friends little girl came up to play ponies with us which was super cute. She had a go on all the ponies who were all perfect gentleman (Sunny accidentally bounced her off bless him, but he was mortified and kissed her better many times over.) Jack was completely smitten and is now convinced he should go live in Kayleigh's back garden in semi retirement. Him and Sunny both schooled very nicely again especially considering as the weather was really warm... 20 degrees in March!? What!? There were so many flies we had to get the fly veils out; good call weather! Jack particularly impressed me on the ground as he was perfect for Kayleigh to groom in and have a go at picking his feet out and his manners were perfect; veeeeeery close to bringing tears to my eyes lol, he can be a very difficult horse to be around on the ground sometimes so it's lovely to see him being really grown up.

 

 

 

MOT time!

Last Wednesday the boys had a well over due visit from the vets for a MOT. It's something I've been putting off and putting off due to Jack not being the easiest for the vets... last time he was injected he went from being hopping lame to suddenly being able to vertically rear and ran off round the yard with the syringe sticking out of his neck halfway. Not enjoyable. The vet was so good with him on Wednesday and just gave him lots of pats and cuddles and then quickly injected when he wasn't looking. I don't think he even realised anything had happened! He was watching all the other horses like 'Hahahahahah, poor you being injecting, I didn't have to have mine na na na naaaah'. We'll let you believe that if you wish Jack. Sparkie was really good for both his vaccinations and his teeth, time to learn from the best Jack ;) The next day we schooled Sunny & Jack with mis matchy polos which is always adorable. Jack went really nicely, still not as sharp as I'd like to be with his initial canter transitions but he always gets there after the first few and his walk to canter is definitely something that seems to be coming together nicely :) Worked on 20m and 10m canter circles, his canter is so much more balanced now!

 

Then on Monday we decided to have a play bareback with Sparkie & Sunny. Both were very good boys and everyone had fun! Sparks felt really confident and jumped the biggest I have done bareback in a very long time with no hesitation.

not a jump. Serious.

Dat forelock.