Yes those lines in the image are poles, it was the best I could work up after forgetting to take a picture of the actual poles. Although this is something I might try doing in the future with pole work posts, then add in a picture of the actual poles too. If it came up to a more complicated exercise to explain I will be able to add in arrows etc to show which way we went.

What we did with the poles:

Throughout a circle that took up half of the arena we set out 3 pairs of poles. One in the middle of the arena (orange),  one by the entrance gate (blue) and the other in between them too (green). 

The exercise was to then go through the poles and around In a circle or oval depending on which two sets of poles we were going through. In this lesson I hadn't done any work with Legacy since the lesson the week before so on the rare occasion she was a little lively (she can normally go awhile without work and be fine when you get back on.) this toyed with my confidence a little and I'm going to be honest there was a few times I was ready to throw the towel in and say I wanted to get off.

Thankfully I had put my big girl breeches on that day and I fought through it. 

Before using the 2 outer sets of poles we did a few exercises between the blue and green sets of poles. At this point I was fine confidence wise with Legacy. 

Some of the exercises we did were:

- Go through the blue set of poles and then through the green set.

- Go through the blue set of poles and either go on the a inside or the outside of the set of green poles.

- Same as above but opposite way around. Going through the green set and either way around the blue set. 

These exercises were done on both reins. 

After that we started to incorporate the orange set of poles. Were we would do big circles from blue through orange and smaller ones in between of orange and green then blue and green.

It took us pretty much the whole lesson to get a nice rhythmic trot out of Legacy this day as she was very much running in her trot. My Instructor was very determined to get a nice trot out of her before the end of the lesson and to end the lesson on a nice trot aswell.

When we started to incorporate the orange poles was when Legacy started to heat up a little. I hadn't been this far down in the arena with her for a while as we'd been working in the top quarter to half in 20m circles and on a square/rectange that way I could always have a good amount of control of her.

The control when she starts to heat up is definitely a communication error rather than her needing another bit, something not fitting correctly, her not being happy etc. As when she does heat up my first Instinct is to stiffen and tense up and pull back on the reins slightly. Now I know that both of these are something I need to work on. In terms of the pulling on the reins this is also something we worked on in the lesson as the instructor told me to try intermittently slightly pull on each rein and that if she doesn't go off on me to send her into the arena fence a little by turning her head. I did manage to find some control of her by trying these out and maybe we'll get there when I stop stiffening up. 

The Funnel Exercise

During my last lesson on Legacy we used poles to switch it up a little. Although I pretty much understood what was wanted of us after a tester warm up round. It took me a while to translate it over to Legacy. 

What we did with the poles;

On a 20 circle I would either go on the inside, over or on the outside of the fan of poles. Then on the set of 2 poles I would go between the fence and poles, between the 2 poles or on a smaller circle between the fan of poles and the 2 poles. 

I did this exercise in trot on both reins and my instructor would say what she would want us to do with the next set of poles as we finished one set. For example I would go between the gate and the poles and then over the fan of poles. Sometimes she would leave it a little longer so I would have to react fast and get Legacy working quickly and effectively. We struggled with this a little in the beginning because it took a while to get Legacy into a nice rhythm, she would be running along in trot. When she's at this pace I never know to kick her on to keep her going or slow her down to steady her I'm fear she's going to think I'm asking her to canter or if she'll stall on me. I had to try get her into rhythm without showing her I'm worried about what she's going to do. 

Even when you think you've got Legacy working at a good speed you still have to be on the ball and concentrating on her at all times or she will just give up and go back to walk or even just stand there. There was a few times I lost my stirrups and took my concentration off of Legacy to sort these out during the trot and she was back to walk. 

So the stirrup situation is something I'm going to work on, through my position and possibly trying out the cheese grater stirrup grips so help with my losing stirrup problem.

At the end of the lesson we did a little canter on each rein, this is something that Legacy needs to work on a lot as she's not balanced at all, and I don't feel like she's balanced enough to get any benefit out of being cantered on the lunge. So in my sessions with her when I feel like I've got her in a good trot I will ask her for canter but only do a few strides then bring her back and continue doing this as she gains balance. Another thing she needs to learn is that when she comes back down from canter to trot is to keep working and not just die down back to walk.  

I really enjoyed doing this exercise with Legacy and it was nice to get her working over poles. This is something I would do again with her on my individual schooling sessions with her. 

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.