I haven't written any updates on here for ages so with the great weekend I had riding wise I thought it was about time
(And the new similies were an added incentive
)
Anyway, Sábia is not very accustomed to hacking these days, but he last two weekends we have been on three hacks. Weekend before last we went 4 of us, and let's just say that we may have started out with 4 horses but it didn't take long before there was one giraffe, one rocket propelled TB, a fire-breathing horse and a tired pony where I could have sworn our neddies had been :blink:
Anyway, this weekend was a lot better. The mud school was deep enough to dive into even at the shallow end, so we opted for hacking once again. Saturday saw Dancer the TB and Sábia the anglo luso take their riders for a hack. Okay, so my mare (who seems to be permanently elected safety officer
) went a bit like a giraffe once again, but settled down after a nice canter.
We trotted most of the way, and a few canters on the open gravel/mud road. Excellent fun! On the way back there is a lovely long climb and the two were allowed to run like the wind. The TB let the rocket boosters rip and went *bing* into the distance, and poor Sábia was left to catch up without a hope of actually doing so. I had to squeeze her up the last hill with my legs while the TB had to be slowed down big time....and to think that he couldn't be bothered to run when he was a race horse :lol:
Anyway, yesterdays hack was even better. Pelle and Hugo joined us, and we rode a little bit slower this time. All horses went very well indeed, but Sábia was much more relaxed, and working beautifully when asked to do so.
I got incredible suspension in the rear legs even trotting downhill, not the lumpy trot on the forehand <_<
We turned around at the old tarmac road and got ready for the return trip. Victoria said that we needed to make a halt as she needed her stirrups back in place. I halted Sábia but Pelle did some piaffe under the excuse that he neded to move forward a hoof's width :lol:
When we came to the long uphill the three were unleashed, and again the TB zoomed off. Hugo stayed pretty close for a while but dropped behind, and Sábia once again right at the back. The road went through a left hand bend and then downhill..cor was it really this bendy and downhill yesterday, too? :blink: Pelle and I held our neddies as much as we dared while the world whizzed past. Of course our horses are well used to cantering like nutters, they live in a big herd in lumpy terrain
But it's was to forget sitting up there at that speed...
At the top the horses were slowed to walk, save for Hugo who insisted that this was a much better time for "garden passage", or stress-walking if you will :lol: He did calm down, though.
Hugo in front, us in the middle and Dancer at the back I noticed that we entered a mist, better keep the pace down. "Mist, what mist?" Pelle said
As quick leg yield later and I could see that it was steam was coming off Hugo :lol:
We are going to make this more of a regular thing, I think. Horses and riders all enjoyed it so much! :lol:
