5-6 years

In May, Sky turned 5. She's strong and physically quite balanced now and has grown to 15.2hh. This year is really about variety in her work, to explore what we both find fun and interesting, and cross train her body so she's a good all around riding horse, both in her skills and her attitude. She's not particuarly forward going (unless she's heading for home!) so this mentality is something we are working with. I want to enhance her motivation, and also improve her responsiveness. We're fine tuning aids for lightness to be our goal. Building cues from energy, lifting the diaphragm and moving up from there as needed. 

In our cross training and explorations so far since her birthday, we've done farm rides, a low level jumping class, a 16 km pleasure ride, le Trec, and have cowboy camp later in the summer. I incorporate obstacles, the garrocha, dressage tests, hacking and travelling to new places into our regular work. We can hack solo and in company, she is very handy with gates, and is steady minded, so we've even done some babysitting for friends on their youngsters. She can work in the snaffle bit and the bosal (she much prefers the latter). Much more refining is still to come, but we continue to progress in the non linear way in which this happens. 

To maintain her physical wellbeing, I'm incorporating pole work and Hanna Somatics movements into our regular weekly sessions. She is now shod due to flat feet (confirmed on X-ray) and a recommendation from the vet -I'm hoping this will help to increase her hoof angles.

We're still working on canter in the arena. I think she struggles to see the point of it! We went to cowboy camp in September and it was interesting to see the complete change in her movement in canter when she had a purpose- to follow a cow or another horse. Flowing, smooth and happy. The camp showed me her progress from last year, her lightness in many tasks, her greater confidence with cows and her ability to do obstacles with willingness and sometimes even a little style. It was her longest solo trip to tavel and she loaded and travelled well. She bonds quickly with new horses, so separation tension is something we need to work on.

I let a couple of friends sit on her, one rode her out on a hack and we shared a lesson on her. I'm preparing Sky for life, and it might be that she needs to be able to answer questions someone else poses her, so this is part of her education. I think it is disabling to have a one-person horse, so, although this was initially a bit of a leap, I'm glad to have seen my trusted friends be able to translate their cues to what she knows from me, and to see Sky hack out and walk/trot in an area capably with another rider. One friend even did some garrocha work with her, which was fantastic! This is all part of future-proofing her for a good life.