On Thursday the little grey became ours! However she now needs a name. So we want suggestions from our young riders for names. Think about what we should call her and post your suggestions in the comments. We have already had some great ideas from Maddy and Ryan. Lets give poor No Name a name!
The little grey mare is now a Sandalwood pony. On Thursday the little grey became ours! However she now needs a name. So we want suggestions from our young riders for names. Think about what we should call her and post your suggestions in the comments. We have already had some great ideas from Maddy and Ryan. Lets give poor No Name a name!
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On Monday I collected a new pony. She is on loan from a local family for a week. As we have Eeyore and Katy camel new horses can be very nervous. However, she coped very well even when Eeyore came up to the fence and shouted at her. I rode her on Monday evening and she was a very good girl.
On Tuesday Ryan and Maddy came for their lessons. She was groomed from top to tail and the round yard looked as though we had just experienced a snow storm. Ryan had his first ride on her, which went very well. We worked through transitions from halt to walk and walk to halt. After the lesson we had a good talk about training horses, not just riding, but training and Ryan is very keen to start a long journey of training. Sussan Evans of EvanLew Lodge (my Coach) and I have been working at re-educating Smokey. Poor Smokey has quite a few issues. So we have started from scratch and have been slowly developing his understanding. We have been using the training methods recommended by Andrew McLean, and he is making good progress. Smokey and I had a training session this morning and he was a very good boy.
Sarah would be one of our most enthusiastic riders. She rides Driza and loves him to bits!! It's school holidays but Sarah was very keen to have her weekly lesson. Sarah has ridden hundreds of twenty metre circles, transitions from walk to trot and trot to walk. She will be cantering very soon.
Mel and Dom came for their third lesson and had a good time. Mel was very keen to trot again and she did a great job. Dom was very enthusiast and groomed Lily very well and then rode on his own in the round yard.
We went out into the exercise paddock and both riders rode the bending poles and then had a go at the mug race, great fun. The horses were spoiled again with more licorice. Mel and Dom came for their second lesson this morning. They had a lesson on Monday where they learned how to lead their horses and how to groom. In the first lesson they did some basic transitions and learned about how to give correct signals to their horse for walk and halt.
This morning they came full of enthusiasm keen to use their newly learned skills. Once groomed and ready Mel was able to mount Grace on her own, Dom had a little help mounting Lily. They rode lots of transitions and rode circles around the cones and barrels. At the end of the lesson Mel had a little trot, pretty good for her second lesson. Big smiles all around!!!! :) Dom has really grown in confidence from being quite nervous to being very sure of himself. Last lesson Maddy groomed Lily and checked her hooves and then decided to have a sit on Grace. After a tentative start she relaxed and enjoyed the experience. She even got a big hug from her brother. This week she did the usual grooming with Lily, and made a great job of it, then ventured on to sitting on Grace again. Now for the big news, she felt so confident that we had a walk around the round yard. Then she took control and rode on her own, going around the barrels, transitioning from walk to halt and back to walk. We were all so proud, well done Maddy.
Ryan then took over and warmed up in the round yard and then progressed on to the dressage arena. He completed a few twenty metre circles, transitions etc and then did his first real dressage test. What a great afternoon. I still have a smile on my face four hours later. I'm looking forward to next lesson. Aiden and Cooper visited us as part of their country experience to Roma. They were a little shy to start with but soon relaxed and had fun grooming and then riding Lily. They both managed to ride in the round yard off the lead. We then fed the chooks, collected eggs, and fed Katie camel with carrots. Heath and Max sent us a lovely message along with the great photographs. "We wanted to express our sincere gratitude for allowing our family the opportunity to visit Sandalwood. The boys had the best time and have been talking about their experience ever since. The patience and care you showed was so important in gaining their trust as they had expressed some apprehension towards riding in the lead-up. They absolutely loved not only their riding experience, but the opportunity to see and feed many of your other animals, with feeding Katie the Camel carrots being a real highlight. Again, we cannot thank-you and Jill enough for the opportunity." The view from our kitchen window this morning. Katie found a tyre to play with. The fun you can have with an old tyre :) Jyl came for her first lesson on Monday afternoon. She was very nervous, as adult beginner riders often are. (The older we get the harder the ground seems to get, and we don't want to land on it from a horse!) She did great, we rode a few circuits of the round yard and a few figure of eights around the barrels. In the end Jyl relaxed enough to take up the reins and ride a little on her own. A great achievement for her first lesson.
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AuthorSandalwood is a property 11km East of Roma Queensland. Archives
October 2018
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