Right or wrong piaffe?

Here's a bit how you can train your eye to see if in this case a piaffe is correct or not.

The piaffe must be so comprehensive that the horse makes a levade from piaffen, then you know that the hind legs carry more weight and soars into the center of gravity.
Simply, you should get an "uphill battle - feeling" in piaffen, it's not the forequarters that should be higher but the rear should be lowered by the horse angles of the joints of the pelvis and hind legs, when the horse is doing it, the hind legs also swing's into the center of gravity (where the rider sits). The horse should have his neck as its highest point and the nose in front of the vertical, with an arched back and a top line.

A correct piaffe in my eyes!

Then here's the wrong piaffe. Unfortunately it's the one you see most. Especially in competitions.


Here are some points on how you see when the piaffe is wrong.

- The front legs walked into the center of gravity.
- The hind legs do not carry any extra weight at all.
- The horse is very tight and compressed.
- And the horse often has it's head resting toward the chest. (Rollkur)

WRONG!

Horses feathers

I just love feathers! It's another reason why I love the breed Irish Cob. I love all the variations. They come in all colors, all kinds of hair volumes and various kinds of hair. Some have smooth silk-like feathers, others have a enormous feathers with curls. I can't have get too much hair. I think it's beautiful when they are excessively hairy on there feet. Unfortunately, mine hasn't as much hair as I wish!

Oh no -.-

Dammit. I was a little too optimistic today. I wrote earlier that I rode around in only my jersey today. I shouldn't have done that. I can feel my health is just going downhill. I'm so sick right now. It hurts in my throat and my nose is snotty! Arrgh!

Pregnant horses

I just saw this picture on Facebook. Isnt it a wonderful and a cute picture? I think there is a great atmosphere about it. There's nothing more beautiful than pregnant horses!

Btw. don't ask me why there's an arrow over the picture? It must be a picture screen image?

Wonderful weather

It has been such a wonderful weather today. The sun was shining and it was warm, or warm enough to I could just ride in a jersey. I was like a little kid when I woke up today, I couldn't wait to get up to Giga.

I drove up to Giga at 12 o'clock. The outdoor arean was dry, so I could FINALLY ride there. I brushed Giga for a long time, we just enjoyed each others company!
I was excited to ride on the outdoor arean. But my happiness didn't last long. I came straight down to the arean and suddenly came the stable owner with all his funny cars. He parked them all in the middle of the outdoor arena. Well that's a bit strange, I thought. He was apparently photographing them. So unfortunately I had to ride in a small part of the arena. It was a bit annoying because I was so excited and for ONCE I had the whole arean for myself :-/

So I didn't get to ride for so long but enough to Giga got tired :-)

My horse likes orange soda

My horse likes orange soda. What a crazy horse. I understand quite good that she loves apple juice, but orange soda? That's a bit strange, but there's probably no limit for what a horse likes. They are as diverse as humans, someone loves apples others loves sugar cubes. Giga hates sugar cubes but loves sour apples :-)

Crazy horses!

I'm so sorry! I didn't really write on the blog yesterday. But I was quite busy.

But but but. Yesterday I was out on the farm. The idea was that I just should give Giga her food. But then I met Sandra, who insisted that I should train Giga a bit in the indoor arena. Yeah okay, I thought. I trained a some tricks with Giga and Sandra watched us. Suddenly I felt that I had another who looked at us. It was Laura. I'm always so awkward when people look at me when I train my horses. I think it's a self confidence problem. After she had watched us in a while she asked if I wanted to go out for a ride with her. Why not, I thought. Then Sandra also wanted to come with us. So we ended up riding out together all three. But our trip got suddenly a little wild. The idea was that we were going to ride a calm and slow trip. But the horses didn't agree on that. It all went a bit wrong when Hector (Sandra's horse) got up front of Giga. Zafir and Giga just went crazy. The wind made ​​them really wild. We all had a little difficulty controlling our horses.


At last the horses fell down and I thought, whew, it was about time. Giga responded barely on my signals. When we got down to the road everything went almost wrong. Suddenly Laura's horse flew up into the air. It seriously made ​​the wildest jump but Laura responded hardly at it. She obviously knew this was coming. Fortunately Giga didn't respond on it. We got out on the road and suddenly a random runner comes from out of nowhere, all three horses just jumped up into the air. I do not think I've ever seen such a scared face on a human before. Wow, we scared the life of that man. But I guess a Shire, Irish Cob and an Arabian who all jumps up in the air at the same time, looks probably a little dangerous. It was a priceless expression! Poor guy :-D

What a trip. There you just can see how horses can influence each other. If one is nervous and wild often the others follows.