26.6.17

Happy birthday Basse!

Ahh, happy birthday to my forever baby Fat Unicorn who is 15 today! 🦄💜 He's been mine since he was 4 years old and gaaaahh this has made me a little teary. I'm so blessed to have had this horse in my life for so long - we were never going to be world beaters, but who cares when you have a horse with a heart of gold!
 If you follow me on Instagram or this blog's Facebook page, you'll have seen that on Saturday I had a super ride on Basse. I was really really pleased with him, and like I stated earlier he wouldn't be so happy to be back working properly if he wasn't feeling good. So I think we will just have to crack on with the work once again and try to get him to lose those extra pounds that he has gained recently! 🐷
Following my lesson on Friday, I carried on with working hard on keeping my hands really still even though Basse wasn't feeling super light like Vallu was during the lesson - but I thought it would be interesting to see what kind of an effect it would have on him... Yes we had several moments where Basse resembled more of a giraffe than a proper dressage horse but when we both got our acts together he felt wonderful! It made me realise that now I've got my lower leg behaving better

I also paid a lot of attention to getting him truly off the leg - lots of transitions and quick reactions from him to my leg aid resulted in him doing proper working trot and canter that I din't have to chase or constantly nag him! I read somewhere last week that a well trained horse should carry on in whatever pace you have asked of him until you ask him to do something else, so with this is mind I wanted Basse to be thinking a lot more forwards than I normally let him be. If previously I've been satisfied with 60% effort from him, now it needs to be 80% and he needs to stay in trot or canter until I ask something else from him, rather than him dropping back into trot before I've wanted to.


He's such a good man, riding him is so much fun even though everything we do is just very basic and nowhere near anything advanced. (And also please do excuse the 💩 stains, I was in a rush to ride before it started to rain so I didn't have time to scrub the stains away...! 🙈 )

For anyone interested we are wearing HV Polo RAF blue set, BR silver over reach boots and my Spooks unicorn t-shirt all from Feather Dressage.

8 comments:

  1. Aw, Happy Birthday!

    I agree that horses should continue in the gait you asked until you ask something different. Otherwise, you're constantly telling them what to do!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Basse says thank you! And yep, I think it's so true but it's been hard work trying to convince Basse of that!! 😂

      Delete
  2. LOL manure stains on grey horses are so common I didn't even notice until you said something. Basse looks handsome and fun to ride. I love riding different horses and having to adjust myself accordingly. I feel like I learn a lot that way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I try to always have him 100% clean when I know someone is taking photos but I was so rushed for time that I couldn't get him clean 🙈 He loves using his poo pile as a pillow... 💩

      Delete
  3. Awwww, happy birthday Basse! I totally hear you on the manure stains, I'm so used to it with my white pony that I barely even notice anymore.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha, I don't mind them when I'm just hacking or riding by myself but when someone is taking photos I'd rather have him clean! He just loves to sleep on poo too much !

      Delete