A sunny start to another very active today for all the ponies and all the humans too. Chris and Kerry have come over from the German/Luxembourg border to attend a course that I have tailor made for them. They have taken on two semi-feral Exmoor ponies, a filly and a colt, from a Dutch conservation scheme that was seeking new homes for them. They've reached the stage where both ponies can be caught and handled and are looking forward to the future and making further progress with them.
On Day one we have covered so much work, beginning, slightly out of order, with early ridden work. Jodie and I had the perfect horse for this demonstration with Tilly who as ever was so sensible. Today she has been ridden in the Western saddle and off the lead rein for the first time.
Leaving Tracey, Natasha and Jodie to work with the other starters, I commandeered Petra and Theoden for some groundwork training. Here Chris is working through the natural into-pressure response to ask Petra to take a step over...
...and Kerry is asking Theoden to back through the L-shaped poles. Not easy when the hunt were paying Janesmoor a second visit in just one week.
Meanwhile...Bella had her first trot under saddle and Nettles had his first gallop. He seems also to have ridden across the bridge!
No course would be complete without a bit of clicker training with Jack...
...and a bit of jumping...
...and everyone loves him.
This afternoon started with a demonstration of desensitisation techniques. Tilly, who has not done any with us before, seemed completely unperturbed.
Not even the full brolly fazes her...
...and we're soon doing 'fly pasts' and following her with it.
A bit of love from Kerry before we start on the horse agility obstacles...
Finally we had a long reining session. Petra is a wonderful teacher.
Time to lie down, there's more tomorrow.
