SO MUCH SNOW

Having acclimatised to the British winters, I can say it has been a hell of a shock to be riding in -15c with a foot of snow on the ground! Once I feel a little bit more normal, I think I may to do a "how to survive proper winters" blog post ❄️🌨

Both my boys have been really well behaved and I'm so proud of them. Normally when the temperature suddenly drops both of them have got a little bit crazy but luckily for me this time they have behaved impeccably - just on the right side of hot. On several occasions of riding Vallu over the last two weeks I've thought that he's been perfect, moving fantastically with very little effort from me (apart from trying to slow him down just a tad 😂) I've really been focusing on getting him soft through his neck - trying to make him nearly 'too soft' - because this allows him to move better through his shoulders and back. We've only moved onto this after spending most of autumn trying to get him to go straight and not falling through either shoulder! By working on the basics such as straightness, through the back and softness and ignoring my constant need to be working on test movements like half passes, shoulder ins etc I feel like we have improved so much. Just by having him straighter and softer, everything else is easier to do and we're both happier. I've not had a bad ride in well over a month, and I think it's from finally sorting out my head and realising that I don't need to be constantly practising test moves, I can be happy working on the softness and straightness!

Even Basse has been superb recently. Yesterday he did his first steps of canter since January! Even though he struggled staying in canter, he was more than willing to pick up canter several times and I'm over the moon that he didn't put the brakes on and say no, he was in fact happy to be doing something different 💕 He's still got problems with his shoulders/withers/muscles (not really sure which one it is...) but it seems to be improving with the massages that he's getting every 2-3 weeks as well as the TENs machine. I'm hoping it's not anything like spinal cord nerve's compression, and it's just the lack of muscle and the tightness of the muscles that are there. We have the vet coming out in December to check on another horse so I think we'll scan Basse's neck just to be sure and then at the end of January he will hopefully have a super equine chiropractic come and have a look at him 👍🏻

Anyone else use an equine massage or chiropractic for their horses? What have your experiences been?