In September 2015 my mum bought her own horse called Cloudy, he is an American Paint X Thoroughbred. He's 18 this year and is an ex eventer. He hasn't been out eventing for a while now as we've had him a year and a half and his past owner had him a couple of years. Since retiring from eventing he has just been a happy hacker with his past owner and pretty much my mum. She takes him in the school on occasions and a bit more often throughout the summer when the roads are busy.

We're not sure on any of his eventing history, but we've seen some pictures his past owner had of him doing it. For the age of him he is still very much active and if you compared him to the way Legacy works you make think their ages were the other way around. He is ridden most days as my mum works in the mornings she gets the afternoons to ride so he is quite fit. There's a popular quick hacking route that the yard do, typically it takes 20 minutes there and back, it takes Cloudy 10 minutes he has such a big stride and is forward going he leaves everyone behind.

Myself and him have such a love hate relationship, he is definitely a one person horse. Lets just say we more tolerate each other. In the beginning we got along well. There were moments where he would misbehave for me but we got over that. There was a time he gave me a black eye, I've written about it in my Naf hedgy treats review. We were doing great riding together and I was even getting back into jumping on him, as he was such a confidence booster when it comes to jumping. If you aren't 100% sure on what you're doing he's great, he does it all for you. Until one day just before christmas the year we got him I was jumping him and he took off and bunny hopped until I was off, I went straight into the puddle. I was ready to finish jumping for the day after that but I got back onto to trot a 20 circle to keep my confidence on him and he did the same again but also jumping over the pole on the floor. Which was unexpected for me. Turns out when we got the back man out after that his withers was out of place and the jumping and work was causing him pain. Since that day I've lost my confidence on him and haven't ridden him without being on the lunge since. As it was even when not in pain he did like to play up for me a little anyway. My aim this year along with getting Legacy working well is to get back on Cloudy and to get back schooling him and listening to me, and maybe we'll leave the jumping as an aim for next year.

I'm Back! Where I've been.. Quick Update.

Hey guys! Long time no write. 

It's been about 7/8 months since I last updated, but to be honest not much has happened in that time. I think that's why I haven't had the urge to get back blogging until now. I haven't been riding much over that time. I was busy with work throughout the summer then I was finding it was too hot for Legacy when I did have the time to ride on my days off. Then on the other scale of the weather when it wasn't too hot we had the horrible winds and rain where I live. I'm a fair weather rider at the best of times too, although I'm working on that after realising how much time out of proper work Legacy has had. 

I haven't had any confidence to ride Legacy out on the road as at the beginning of last summer she took off cantering on the road with me for no seeable reason, I stayed on but it still affected my confidence on the road with her, she was nappy on the road as it was so adding that on didn't help. Where she is kept for livery the roads get quite busy over the summer and the speed limit is 60. The tourists and most of the locals don't seem to care if there is horses on the roads, they'll come past speeding or beeping their horns if they can't get past. So because of this I can't hack out over the summer resulting in me totally losing my confidence on the road with her. 

This is something I'm working on though, I'm back to having lessons every 2 weeks with her. At the moment we're learning for her to respect me and listen to my legs while out on the roads as when she has her napping moments she's either not going anywhere or prancing a little in the middle of the road, the more I try to push her over out of the way of cars the more she plays up. So this is our main goal for now so I can regain my confidence on her out there. 

One of the other main reasons to why I didn't get to ride much throughout the summer was on one of the windy days we were putting a rug on her in the field, we only did this as she's very good standing there to put a rug on no matter what the weather. Unfortunately on this day the wind caught hold of the rug when we'd only managed to get it half on and it flew over her head. Due to this she spooked and took off around the field, falling over the rug as it came around her front legs. She was very lucky to come out of it without any major injuries, just a couple of grazes and burn marks from the velcro on the rug. What happened that night is something I never want to see again, it was horrifying. 

We're very lucky that she's not scared of putting rugs on in a breeze or rugs at all now. Quite the tough one Legacy is. 

The winter weather hasn't been the best on my 2 days off a week so I haven't had much luck riding there either, but as I mentioned I'm working on riding when the weathers not the best to try and combat the lack of riding for next winter.  

That's just a quick update to where I've been and what's been happening and as you can read, there's not much been on going on. I'm back at blogging now and I'm planning to update and post more frequently now.

I have also updated the pages Legacys feed and I have changed the link of my for sale page to my Preloved page now. 

Quick Update: Where I've been

Where have I been? Well I know I have done a few of these posts where I've been missing for a while over the time of the blog, But now I'm actually going to make an effort to continue with the blog posts after this. Over the time I've been gone there has been a lot going on with Legacy but none of it has been good. After she recovered from her worms she has been putting the weight back on great, which she still has all of and is looking better than ever.

Due to the bad weather we've had this winter I didn't get much riding time in and then she cut her head open, the vet had to be out to sedate her to then add stitches. She looks great with a bald patch just by her right ear haha.

Just as the stitches have healed and I could chance getting the bridle on her without any sensitivity in the area from her cut, she came in lame from all of the wet weather we've been having in Wales her soles have gone soft. So to fix this she came in on box rest for 5 days. After this she was great and her soles were getting better, she was allowed out if she came in when the days were really wet. The first day this happened and all her friends went out she hated it, she really hates being left alone in the stable on her own. She was pawing, kicking, shouting & neighing basically being a right terror. She had to be out the next day, over the next few days she went lame from the wet again. The farrier has been checking her feet throughout this, and due to her going lame again she now has silicone pads on with back shoes to help her soles recover from the wet field. She instantly went sound with them on as she was only a little lame.

As the weather was great we decided to go out for a small hack, a few of us from the yard. After legacy having near enough 2 months off work she didn't put a foot wrong out on the hack, she was brilliant. Now that she's back sound and her heard has heel, I just need the lighter nights, which are working their way here and the spring weather to come through to get her back working and hit come accomplishments with her this year.

A few things I want to work on with her this year is her canter in the school, so she doesn't speed off and she needs to gain more balance in canter, I also want her to become more engaged from her behind to learn to work into a contact. After she's managed this I want to work on doing some jumping with her. In the mean time I will be doing lots of ground work with her and some trotting work over poles.

I won't leave it so long to update next time.