11th April, 2009 Lost count of the days...

Rosie and Fern have come to the end of the second week of their training. Both have been ridden three times now. Fern went out for a ride on the lead rein on the Forest this morning and was absolutely fine. We will look at fitting a saddle for her on Monday and then ride her in that on Tuesday. Rosie is just pulling a little face as she is mounted and then she relaxes and stretches out her neck so we are going to get her back checked again as a precaution before we take her ridden work any further. In the meantime we will introduce her to clickered stretches, pole work and long reining up and down hills all in the hope of building up her back muscles.

We have a new arrival, Percy, who is going to have some handling work. He appears to be either a Fell or a Dales cross and he's a nice looking pony. Sadly he has decided that people can't be trusted and won't allow them to catch him. I'm going to assist his owner in building up his trust and persuading him that it's okay to be caught. Fortunately he likes food so we have the option of clicker training or using the touch and move away technique that we use for the foals or a combination of both.

I rode Chancer for a short while in the round pen today. It's a long time since I have been on a horse that is so tall. He's so laid back and feels great. We've still got a long way to go with his fittening work but there's no great rush.