Lagan's return to the competition arena

A couple of weeks ago a good friend sent me an SOS message regarding one of her pupils, a young girl whose TB gelding was suffering from an undiagnosed lameness (Massey tests pending). Aimee was getting pretty down over her horse being out of action and was desperate to ride. Would I consider lending her Lagan? Lagan, hairy yetti beast who was growing fatter and fatter in the paddock whilst I focussed my riding attention on Reilly. I thought it sounded like a fabulous idea so agreed and a little over a week ago they drove down and collected him.

Today they had their first outing together at the Kinross PC Dressage/SJ day. Aimee had elected to do the 60cm class when she first entered and after riding Lagan for a few days had decided she would really prefer to enter the 80cm class but, by the time they got to the event, it was too late to change classes so they did the easier class.

Dressage went very well with a score of 73.33% and third place and SJ was clear leaving them in third place overall (in a class of thirty six competitors) - Great effort Aimee and good boy Lagan. Check out the SJ pic - don't think he wanted to touch those poles! LOL!

Reilly in the Arena at Home - 7 May

Well today was one of those rides where the horse did nothing wrong and the rider could do nothing right! I guess we have to have rides like this to put everything into perspective, although it is not as if I consider myself a particularly accomplished rider! Today the arena was dry enough to attempt a couple of canters although I didn't push it as we had quite a big slip yesterday and I don't want either of us to lose confidence plus it cannot be easy for Reilly to carry himself as well as me in canter. He was a good boy and did everything he was asked.

After we had ridden around for a while I popped him on the lunge to go over a few jumps - he seems to be getting the hang of jumping quite nicely.

Keeping off his back @ canter

Luff my boy!
Poppin' over

Comin back down

Oops got in a bit close

Don't want to catch those poles!
Look up mum!
Walkies
Canterin'
Walkin'

Trottin'
Yehar, this is fun mum!
Trottin' s'more

Saffron update

Saffron has had a rather dramatic start to life after spending her second week of life up at Massey Equine Hospital with an infection that threatened her life. I can happily report that she is all better and back at home and, to show that she has her bounce back, I have a video from her owners Wendy and Stuart, to share.