The outdoor arena experience

Switching from riding in our neighbor's big (20x60m) indoor arena to our own little (20x40m) outdoor arena is proving to be very interesting every spring. Today Nelli and Basse had their first ride on the outdoor arena this year, and Rama had his first outdoor ride ever! All of them behaved much much better than I expected to, and I'm really looking forward to being able to ride on our own arena from now on! 

I adore riding outside; after having been riding in the indoor arena for the last 8 months, being able to ride in the sun and breathe the fresh air is just one of the great things in life that you don't fully appreciate until you've missed it. (Photos also turn out much better when riding outside!!)

My favorite of Nelli and I
Riding outside for the first time means that we don't really work on anything, I just focus on keeping the horses working forwards but being calm, and trying to stay on when the keepthemcalm technique doesn't go exactly to plan!

Normally switching to an outdoor arena isn't a problem for me, but what makes the first rides rather interesting is that our outdoor arena is right next to the road, so the horses find the cars and lorries a bit scary at first. The horses do in fact get used to the cars, bikes, runners, prams, dogs and other horses really quickly, but we always have a problem with the lorries. Even though the road is very small and there isn't a lot of traffic on it, when the lorry goes past, the idiots drive incredibly fast (the limit on the road is 50 km/h but they drive more like 80 km/h!!) and the horses really don't like them, and to be honest I don't blame them at all.

 I love my facial expression when riding!!

Rama was a very good  boy today, and I was again blown away with how well behaved he is. Not only was this the first time ever in the time that he has been with us that he was ridden outside, Rama also did not react at all when one of the lorry-drivers with the biggest and nosiest lorry drove like a maniac on the road!

Totally in control!