Hello again,

This week at Pony Club in Stable Management we were learning about Lameness. We looked up Lameness in some horse books including The Manual of Horsemanship. Sally told us to bring in all our Manual of Horsemanship's for next week. In the books we looked in I found out loads of facts about Lameness.

Here are some things that I found out:
It is easiest to tell if a horse is lame if he is trotting. The horse will nod its head when trotting.
Lameness can occur along the leg. You may be able to feel swelling on the leg.
You may be able to walk the lameness off but if it is bad you should call the vet.
Wrap a wet towel round the swelling to soothe it.

I learnt loads in Stable Management this week!

Next we all got our ponies out of their stables and we took them round to the arena for our lesson with our stand in instructor Blythe. This week I was on Minnie again! Yippee! First we walked our ponies round the arena a couple of times and then we took turns trotting round. After that we did some twenty metre circles in trot.

Then we tried trotting without stirrups. First we did some leg stretches to get us sitting deep in the saddle and then we took turns to trot round. Minnie did it really well. It was great fun but next time I need to remember to keep my leg on the girth line.

We took our stirrups back and then we put our reins and whips in our right hands. We took turns trotting round, it was hard to steer with one hand and some of the ponies kept going off the track but we had all got the hang of it by the end. Then it was the end of the lesson.

Minnie went really well and it was exciting to ride without stirrups and reins it really improved my riding seat and balance. I really enjoyed Pony Club this week and I really improved my riding in the lesson!

Jessica x

Added on 17th Feb 2012