Horse bit fitting consultation

Bridle and bit fit, especially the headpiece fit and horses' comfort are issues that I've known about for ages and despite trying to my very best, a while ago I decided that I needed professional help with both Melisse and Vallu's bridles and bits. Whilst both seem comfortable in their bridles, I've not been entirely convinced that I have got the best possible bits which is why I decided to go for a Horse Bit Fit consultation - my local bit fitter is the lovely Lyn Beattie. Even though I consider myself and my family as experienced horse owners, I've spent hours trying to learn as much as possible about all the different types of bits and I've spent much money on purchasing many different bits, Lyn's advice was invaluable. She spent ages with us and advised which bits to try and explained how both of my horses needed slightly different settings in their bridles and in the end found the right bits for both! 🙌🏻

So each horse had a 1.5 hour consultation with Lyn. Both were looked at in the stable with the bridle on as well as when being ridden. The weather was NOT on our side - although we didn't get soaked through down to our skin, it was SO windy that neither of the horses were able to relax fully (I mean who would in the middle of a storm?!) which meant that it was a bit more difficult for Lyn to judge what the horses thought about the bits. I loved when Lyn went over both of the bridles, it felt like a lesson in bridle fitting which is exactly what I wanted, I needed for someone to point out what needed to be better, what was good, how each horse's mouth confirmation meant that they suit different bits, what to look for in a bridle, what to avoid, how to make a bridle fit a horse better, where exactly the bit should fit in their mouth etc. It was like having a tutor there for 3 hours explaining everything to you!

The benefits of field work & hacking out

Whenever it's a gorgeous hot summers day, I always feel like I shouldn't spend it in the arena training the horses but instead I want to go out into the fields or go out for a hack - they all deserve a bit of fun! 💚 Now that we've found a nice quiet local woodland to hack around, I've gained a bit of a hacking out obsession with Vallu. In fact last autumn I spent a lot of time with him 'hacking' around the field, but every single time I've gone there with him he has spooked/spun/tanked off with me, so I was a bit apprehensive about going back out into the 'real' world. The first time a few weeks ago he was a little look-y, but last weekend despite the new route he decided that actually this was fun and I had a lovely time. We all know how those first few rides somewhere 'different' can be so demoralising when it seems that the horses decide to forget everything they've ever known.... So I've not been brave enough to take Melisse outside of home, but I am VERY pleased that she has been hoof perfect in the big field! This made me think about all the benefits of field work & hacking out:

Riding exercise of the month: shoulder-in to half-pass

From youngsters to advanced level horses, I believe that shoulder-in and half-pass should be in every horses' schooling routine. They are both incredibly useful exercises that helps improve the suppleness, help to achieve increased flexibility and to gain strength, but also improve the horse's concentration to your aids - which is especially great if you have a spooky or hot horse! When starting with shoulder-in, it's much easier to use the fence of the arena to help you to stay in a straight line, so this month's riding exercise of the month incorporates that into it. From the short side, ride the first half of the long side in shoulder-in, in the middle of the long side ride a 10 meter circle, followed by half-pass to the centre line. You can do this in walk, trot or canter, I like riding it in canter with Vallu and in trot with Erik, but sometimes I change it up depending on the day. 🤗

As you ride the shoulder in, think of being able to alter the angle with your seat and reins with a good amount of the flexion through the neck and with a tempo that stays consistent throughout the exercise, in order to develop the suppleness further. Once you reach E, ride a 10 meter circle which will help you prepare for the half pass and also gives you chance to make sure that your horse is in front of your leg! Straight away after the circle ride your half pass towards the centre line, and then repeat the exercise in either direction.

Getting back into it

If you follow me on Instagram (@roosa_rantanen) you’ll know that over the last few weeks I've been suffering from being incredibly frustrated with the weather! Over the last 2 weeks I've barely ridden and the horses haven't been going out properly - our fields are a soggy marshland thanks to the constant rain and the gale force winds have ensured that my feet haven't left the ground. Honestly it has been the longest period of high winds that I have ever experienced in my lifetime and even Basse, who I would trust with my life, has been wild to hand walk in the arena so you can only imagine what the other horses have been like! 🌪☔️

I really didn’t want to have a doom and gloom and woe is me blog post on here as I prefer keeping my blog a positive and encouraging space, but the truth is that a horsey life is hardly ever perfect... Two weeks of crappy weather as well as a horrible bout of flu that kept me essentially bed bound for days did a huge amount of damage to my motivation and to my self-confidence. Before this I was planning competitions as well as a trip to a local canter track, hiring an indoor arena and trailering up for hacks, but over the last few days I didn't even want to get on my horses. Riding horses is certainly never plain sailing and I’m not ashamed to admit that some days (or even weeks!) I struggle. It's hard to carry on but eventually you come through on the other side and get back into it. You just have to give yourself the time for it.

But on Sunday I put on my brave pants and decided to go for it - I'd had enough of my self-pity, my fever was gone and with the winds dying down by the hour I knew I had no excuses left. I made a plan to actually ride all the horses, rather than lunging because they'd been lunged all week. As I got on each horse I said to myself that "I am not scared, I am a brave rider" and this was the mantra that I repeated constantly as I rode. And in the end, I actually ENJOYED riding!! Yes they were all wired to the moon and yes I did sit to some very impressive spooks, but I got to end it on a good note on all of them. Afterwards I felt AMAZING! And even today more than 48 hours later, I still feel amazing. 

Riding exercise of the month: "the magic square" pole work

If you are looking for something interesting and fun to add to you and your horse’s rides to get you through to spring and summer when the chance to hack out and use fields more returns, pole work is the answer! 💪🏻 They are very easy to set up and there are so many variations you can use to benefit your horse. I know a few people who think that pole work is just for those who jump or event their horses, but I think it has benefits for horses in all disciplines - it encourages your horse to become more rhythmic and balanced and helps you improve your timing and balance (it does for me at least! 😁) 

One of my favourite pole work exercises is the magic square ⬛️ It's a great exercise to teach your horse to remain as straight as possible when riding along the diagonal. The other reason why it's one my favourite exercises is because it really doesn't take long to set up this exercise - with four poles you just make a perfect square that is aligned properly with both diagonal lines, which means you can ride a figure of 8 without having to stop at all. It's an easy exercise for the horses, but not too easy as the two poles means your horse does actually have to pay attention to where it's feet are going! The main thing to focus on is to not speed up, to let the poles do the work and to let the horse think about what is happening. You need to trot straight through the square, and not lean and cut corners, ensuring that you use your leg and rein aids properly. 

So there you go, my recommend riding exercise for next month is this quick but effective magic square pole work! 💪🏻 Get those hind legs working! If you tried this, let me know how it went! 

#rootd: pink & elegant

Although it's not been too long since my last #rootd blog post, but I thought now that I have some of the new sets from the SS19 collections, I ought to carry on with these posts. This month’s look has been inspired by Valentines Day but I've made it a bit more casual and more like "you can still wear this to the barn and not regret your horse sneezing all over your jumper" without regretting your outfit choice! 💗 This dusky pink is everywhere this spring, most of the high street shops will have jumpers, sweatshirts and t-shirts in this colour, and best of all it’s just so easy for anyone to wear and pull it off! I also love to add some sparkle to our daily training, which is why these Anky sparkling over reach boots make this outfit look complete ✨

 Saddle pad: PS of Sweden rose

Bandages: PS of Sweden rose

Over reach boots: Anky shiny white glitter sheepskin

Top: H&M old rose sweater

Breeches: Pikeur Gia leggings

Fake it till you make it

After Vallu had his week of very very light work to give his legs a bit of an easier time, he's now lost the balance between a normal, well behaved, forward going horse and a crazy fire breathing dragon that I have worked so hard to achieve over the last couple of weeks beforehand. The last two rides with him have been him trying to trot like Valegro followed by an explosion of energy and it's made me realise how far I really have come with him in the last 5 years. Instead of being petrified of his spooks, they now mostly either make me laugh or then I ignore them and kick on!

5 year blogiversary!

 I must admit that I am starting to feel a little old now... FIVE YEARS?! How has five years just flown by so quickly? It just feels like just a year ago that I started blogging but in fact it's 547 posts later! 🎁🎈🎊 🎉 I'm still SO glad I decided to start blogging all those years ago. I've had the chance to create a great group of equine bloggers, been given great opportunities to review products and gain work and experiences, last year I won Equestrian Blogger of the Year and most importantly, I have years worth of memories and photos of my horses!

#rootd: rose and grey

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2018! 🎉✨
I hope that you all had a lovely evening, my New Year's Eve was spent at home trying to keep the dogs from freaking out about the fireworks and doing checks on the horses to make sure that they stayed calm too - luckily we had a couple of bottles of champagne at home!! 🍾 But anyway, lets start the new year off with a bang - a rose peachy pink and grey riding outfit suggestion! This could be a "new year new me" riding outfit for those of you who have never used pale peach pink before 😜 But since I've been a long time fan of rose gold, so when I heard that Eskadron were releasing a rose gold inspired collection, I was on it like a car bonnet to order the rose big square glossy pad and bandages from the Heritage 2017 collection. I love the fact that Eskadron and Pikeur follow the colour trends of the big fashion lines, so lots of normal non-horsey shops like H&M have got clothes that match - sorry Pikeur but your prices for sweaters and hoodies are sometimes quite extortionate!

Saddle pad: Eskadron rose big square glossy

Bandages: Eskadron rose

Over reach boots: Eskadron Platinum grey 

Top: H&M sweatshirt in powder pink

Breeches: Pikeur grey Piana breeches
Snood: Pikeur anthracite snood

Wild thing!

I must admit that whilst Vallu can be such a lovely honest boy to ride, he can also be a hysterical 🍆 some days (but I love him anyway!). On Saturday we had a beautiful warm up, doing a big relaxed trot around the arena and he was so good that even my mother went "WOW". Should have stopped after my warm up because it just went downhill from there!

Went up into canter - nice and soft. And then he juuuust started to slyly stop concentrating, I stupidly took my foot off the accelerator at the scary spots by the door and the mirrors, which I payed for massively with a ridiculous amount of spooks, leaps and jumps. 😑 Also had a good snake rodeo when I asked him to canter and he saw the hoof prints of a horse doing steps back (cos you know these are terrifying compared to normal hoof steps in the sand!) which thank goodness came to a stop when I rode him into the wall...🌪💥  I made him trot and canter over the hoof marks several times and I hope that I nicely knocked that one on the head!

An update on Vallu

On Monday the vet was here for another reason, but whilst she was here I thought she might as well scan Vallu's leg even though it's a month earlier than what we had planned! I was at university so unfortunately didn't get the chance to talk to the vet myself, but luckily my mother was willing to hold Vallu and let me know what the vet said. I can't even begin to tell how nervous I was during my lecture, for the half hour I knew they were looking at his leg I didn't hear a single word that the lecturer was saying!!

Equestrian Stockholm AW17 Steel Grey set

Having survived the first absolutely manic week of my second term at university this year, I was SUPER excited to see that my Feather Dressage delivery had arrived on Friday. I've been on the hunt for another smart matchy set for training because at the moment I've only got my navy Equestrian Stockholm one, so when I saw that ES were coming out with this colour, I knew I needed to get it! ♥︎

So of course my outfit for the next day was sorted! 💁🏼 I just knew it was going to amazing on Basse (grey on grey rocks!) but I must admit I was bit apprehensive about how it would look on Vallu, especially now that he is in his weird winter coat which is currently just a million different splotches of brown. But I love it, even on him!

Trials and tribulations: Sprenger Dynamic RS bit

Following on from my post in August about struggling with Vallu's weymouth and finding a new bit which I think is a good one for him, I've now just gone and bought him a new (well second hand) Sprenger Dynamic RS D-ring bit. Similarly with the weymouth, over the last month or so every now and then Vallu would play with the bit with his tongue as if to say he wasn't liking it, or then whilst riding he'd go way too light in the contact, open his mouth or then go behind the vertical so I knew it was time to find something else and quickly!

This bit combines an ergonomically created curved mouthpiece with an angled center joint, which is meant to result in soft and even pressure for the best possible bit acceptance. So essentially everything I need, right? His previous bit the Sprenger WH Ultra was also 14mm since anything thicker makes him stick his tongue out, but what I think the problem with that particular bit was that the centre lozenge contains a roller that is meant to give the horses a greater feeling of freedom with their tongue, but now this summer he's just started looking a bit uncomfortable with it. Maybe as he is getting older and his teeth are changing shape the bit that he's been so happy with previously is now not so good? 🤔

"Oh sh*t..."

If you are following me on Instagram you'll know that ever since coming back from my mini holiday in the UK Vallu has had a lump on his left front leg - the lump is in such a place that I knew there was a high chance of a potential ligament or tendon injury. When I looked at it alarm bells were going off and my only thought was "that is a game over injury". It has caused me several genuinely sleepless nights and a few panic attacks, but finally on Monday morning our vet had the time to come and scan the leg.

It's never a good sign when the vet walks into your horse's stable, sees the injury and goes "oh sh*tttt..." The lump on his leg is in such a bad place that I was honestly expecting to be told that it was either career ending or worse, so when the vet informed me that in fact there is only a tiny injury to his check ligament and nearly all of the swelling is between the check ligament and skin I was over the moon!! 🌙 I did the whole voice breaking/crying/laughing thing as I asked her several times if she was 100% sure it wasn't that bad. From the scans you can deduce that it definitely seems like it's more of an impact injury rather than wear and tear or an injury from being over-worked, so it's more than likely that on the Saturday when I was away and Vallu was a twat in his paddock he's managed to bang his leg... #bubblewrapneeded

There is beauty in simplicity

A lot of the blogs that I've recently been reading have been heavily focused on the need to have goals and aspirations and that we must always remember that achieving something takes a lot of time. I know having goals is really important, but recently I've realised that there is beauty in simplicity 🌺

Those of you follow us on Instagram will be aware of the fact that Vallu has a lump on his front left leg, which has been causing me major stress! It's behaving totally differently to a tendon/ligament injury so I've been very carefully riding him very lightly for the last week and since it's not getting worse with exercise, I'm going to carry on riding him to make sure he stays sane and doesn't go crazy in his paddock. I do have the vet coming out next Monday to scan his leg to see what is going on but I have my fingers tightly crossed that it is something less sinister than a major injury 👎🏼

Dressage training with Ville Vaurio: “trust me, nothing bad will happen”

There aren’t that many scenarios that make me nervous when riding Vallu anymore (excluding hacking), but I have to say that the building works, galloping horses on side of the arena, people riding their horses on the canter track on the other side of the arena, gale force wind as well as people coming and going to the patio next to the arena as a combination did freak me out to begin with… 🙄 Talk about being thrown into the deep end! Especially when you are used to riding alone on your quiet arena with no interruptions apart from tractors and other traffic on the road near your arena. There was even one girl who was rude enough to jump over the poles that had been put in the middle of the arena to create separate spaces for those riding in the clinic and those who weren’t, and several times she jumped them right as I rode past and nearly rode into me! #mannersplease But after this slightly heart attack inducing warm up, I have to say I’m so happy that we went to have a lesson and that it was so busy there because now I have a new tactic on how to deal with a Vallu who has crept into his shell, is spooky but also behind the leg (talented horse right here…)

I’ve always been told to kick and ride forwards to make the horse busy when they are being spooky and that’s what I’ve always tried to do, but on the rare occasion that Vallu has been spooky as well as being behind the leg, I have always struggled with what to actually do to get him working normally. Asking him to go forwards has tended to result in more spooks (during this lesson I had 2 ‘leap into the air and then take off with me’) or then a canter that doesn’t actually go anywhere and his neck so tense that nothing you do can get it to move… But today Ville managed to get me to ride Vallu in a such a way that in the end despite everything that was going on around us I managed to get some of the best canter work out of Vallu AND some of the best working pirouettes ever!!

Dressage training with Jenny Eriksson: better reaction from the leg

I was a bit anxious going to this lesson because ever since our last lesson with Jenny, Vallu has been feeling a bit sluggish and behind the leg. Unless I've been just riding him long and low, he's just not been that into his work and he's lost his spooky & hot mode. Although I'd been glad that I'd to work less on trying to stay on (😅) it did make me realise how much I adore his normal attitude towards work and forward going-ness. Sometimes you don't realise how much you love something until you lose it!

Having to use old photos because I was all alone at this lesson

But during this lesson, Vallu seemed to return to normal 🙌🏻 I had two small spooks in the corner that took me WAY longer than normal to get under control simply because I hadn't been expecting them and my reaction time had clearly gotten worse over the last 2 months. The gallop after the one big spook lasted an entire circle simply because I was too busy giggling at him! I can't even put into words how relieved I am that the wild/hot headed side of him has returned. I think the heat and humidity combination of the Finnish summers got to him and made him incredibly lethargic (and before anyone comments: yes I have had his saddle checked and both the chiropractor and equine massage therapist have checked him and given him the all clear so he's NOT been in any pain!)

Trials and tribulations: double bridle bits

If you follow me on Instagram you might have noticed that I recently bought a new weymouth bit to trial for Vallu. He was fine in his old weymouth, but after doing several months of researching and going through old photos I just knew it was time to try something else with him. He's been much better to ride in the double bridle since I bought him a new bridle from EquiWare UK, but I still wasn't entirely happy - every now and then he'd be too light in the contact, open his mouth or then go behind the vertical...

 I've always trusted and used Sprenger bits so for the last couple of weeks I've been on the hunt for a Sprenger KK weymouth because of the reviews I've seen for it, especially for horses with a sensitive mouth because the weymouth is shaped to the anatomy of the horse's mouth and it prevents pressure as the port is angled forward by 45°. I read somewhere that this is a very gentle bit, which is exactly what I wanted to get for Vallu!

In defence of the short and quick ride...

The other night I saw on Facebook someone bragging about the fact that they had ridden their horse for 2 hours to get the horse going well and it made feel a bit anxious and to feel sorry for the horse. Now don't get me wrong I go hacking out for hours and I do get that for example some cross country training sessions take up nearly 2 hours, but this woman had been schooling her horse in the arena for 2 hours and it sounds like the poor little thing hadn't had a lot of breaks during it. I didn't have anything nice to say, so I didn't comment on the thread but it seemed like a lot of other people were also concerned for the horse.

I had a terrible ride on Vallu last Sunday where we were so close to having an argument about going on the bit in an extended walk, but the moment he gave me one step of what I wanted I ended the ride there and then, instead of riding for 2 hours trying to get him to go perfectly. He then had the following two days off, and on Tuesday before I even got on I had decided that I was going to have a quick, short ride. I wanted walk, trot and canter on both reins and nothing else because I didn't want a repeat of Sunday's ride...

Sunset ride

I've had a gorgeous few days off from social media and I have bloody loved it. I have been spending far too much time on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and twitter for the couple of months that I felt like I was getting some form of brain fog/burnout last weekend. It took me an entire day to just answer questions for an exciting 'thing' coming out in early September and after that I couldn't even think of anything to write. I tried opening blogger but I just stared at my laptop, I have 5 different posts in my drafts folder and an entire page worth of notes in my notebook full of ideas and plans, but I couldn't actually write a simple tweet or share a photo on Instagram - I was experiencing my first bout of social media burnout. Something that I LOVE had become totally emotionally exhausting so I took a few days to just ride and enjoy my horses, have family days out and lunch with friends and help my mum with going through my grandpa's war time medals. 

I know this isn't the best picture but what I love about this one is that Vallu's neck is soft and round and his mouth isn't open, my reins are short and my lower leg looks normal!