Schooling Smartie

A little video of Alice and Smartie over the past week. He's going through his final stages of prep before starting to earn his keep in the riding school, though Alice will continue schooling him as a "project pony" between his lesson days.

Lesson Time

Our usual instructor, Nicky, is away diving over this weekend, so Michelle stepped up to give us our lesson yesterday. We worked through stretches and a warm up, before working over canter poles in both 3-point and forward seats. Jodie is riding Bronte, Alice is riding Robert, and Sam is on Bluey.

And here is a little video of the main part of the lesson (not the best quality, but you'll get the gist)

Lunging Smartie

Today is usually booked off as a 'relax' day for the horses, meaning that no lessons are booked, which led to there being some spare time after lunch. We had been meaning to lunge Smartie over some jumps for a few days now, and so we made use of the empty arena! Alice began with a nice warm up, with even and controlled walk and trot (and some slightly less controlled canter) before Jodie picked up the rein and took him up to the jumps. Smartie is terribly unfit and not usually the most athletic, but he made a good effort over the fences, possible 'working hunter' classes in his future?