Jumping!

Not with Bosco, but Herkules. It has been almost a year since last time i rode him. Now he is for sale and ha has only jumped 3 times before so the owner wanted to see if he got too excited and just generally how he would react.

I joined the jumping class in the riding school for a warm up, and stayed abit longer afterwards just to test him abit. In the end, the obstacle was raised to about 1.30 m. I havent jumped that high in 10 years I think, but it was FUN! :D

Springtime!

Yes, spring has arrived with its nice warm temperatures, and what does that mean? Well, lets just say that we take off our big winter coats, so does the horse ><

It was actually more fur than it looks like, most of it is wet here. 

Bosco is not the only horse who sheds his fur!

He is alot more calm when he is inside alone now, than what he was just a few days ago. 

Tired after some work in the arena

Good pictures isn't easy when you are alone with a cellphone camera and the horse wants to follow you where ever you go.

The work in the arena keep improving. Or i should say, I am improving. Bosco works just fine if I can keep my seat where it is supposed to be and keep my hips free of tension. So I've got some work to do, but thats nothing new. 

I have a few weeks left to train before I will be attending a clinic with David Oliveira. Will be fun to see what he thinks of Bosco. Hopefully I will find someone who can transport us up to Trollspeilet! Next time I will be able to drive myself!

Yes, I have changed the layout again. The other one messed up my headlines. 

First week!

Bosco last summer. 

So, first week has come and gone, and I have had a wonderful time!

Bosco had to be vaccinated from the beginning again because of the old ones had expired, so he had tuesday off and wednesday we only did some light work in the arena. 

Thursday we had our first lesson for Pelle. I was focusing on three things;

*flexible in the hips

*contact

*forward!

I started working in walk, working to get an active seat with a flexible hip and get the right contact. At the beginning I tried to use my legs to get impulsion, but my hip wasn't flexible enough so that didn't work. Pelle told me to relax my legs, weight down, but relaxed, and just use my seat and ride him into the contact. Suprise! it worked. For a while I kept working on riding him into the contact and once I got contact, try and stretch his neck down and forwards.

After a while we started working with the same in trot and I learned a new thing today! While working in rising trot I kept a two-beat-rythm with my feet. Weight down both when I stand up and when I sit down. With this technique I had a lighter seat and Bosco responded immediately! I had to keep working on this rythm, contact on the reins and turn my upper body to the inside of the circle so to keep my shoulders in line with Boscos shoulders. 

We also tried canter, the main obstacle here is my hips. Bosco will not canter faster than I can move my hips, so if I tense up he simply won't canter! So the key is to relax and really get the motion through the hip, I did and he was cantering around. Pelle told me to try to speed up the rythm, I did and Bosco responded with a brisker pace. Then he told me to slow down a bit, and Bosco responded better than I think I've ever felt before! fun! 

The next few days I have been practicing the same things as we worked on, on thursday. There is improvement from day to day!

Today I had more or less good contact for almost the intire duration of the work in the arena. After finishing the work in the arena I wanted to take him out for a little walk in the area around the stable. I have never been on hacks out here so I really had no idea where to go, so I just followed the road for a while before heading home again. 

Bosco has been known to be some what "hysterical" before so I was prepared for almost anything. I was quite suprised of the way he acted, I wouldn't call it "calm". But for a young, iberian who has just come to a new place I think he behaved quite well! He is what I would call "awake", he looks at different things, but he never turns around or try to run. He might stop or trot a few steps, but thats easy to prevent when I just focus. We passed lots of different things today, scary things like mail boxes, garbage cans and tarpaulin blowing in the wind, and he just walks forward with his ears topped at all times. Good boy!

Before I left him today, I went outside to look at him from the stable. You can look down from the indoor area and on to the pen, where all the horses are. He was on the part furthest away from the stable, eating. He noticed someone up where I was at, looked directly at me and neighed at me, before he continued to eat. Weird, I thought and went back inside. 5 minutes later I went back out to see what he did now, and once again, he looked directly at me, neighed and went back to eating. He is weird, but cute! :D

Weird horse

Yes, I have a weird horse. After some light work in the arena, i let him out back in the herd again. The first thing he did was to roll over a few times before he sat up and did this; 

First i thought he couldn't get up, then I realised that he was scratching and was enjoing it aswell! Look at his muzzle :D

And he didn't want to wait for the water, ice is the same thing, only frozen !

The Bosco has arrived!

After having a few problems with car, driver and transport we were finally on our way to pick up Bosco.


Last time we tried to load him on to the transport he didn't really want to. I think we spendt about 25 minutes to get him in. Today he stopped twice, then walked right in, Good boy! While driving he was so quiet i was almost worried because there was no sound, has he jumped out? But no, he was just eating and did not seem too worried about it. 


Once we arrived at Årungen I had to put him in a stall and leave him there while I returned the transport and the nice drivers could get themselves home. That took about an hour, and I came back to let him out in the new herd.

The herd consists of all kinds of breeds and they were quite interested in this new guy. Only one, I think he is the boss, was "mean" to him. He only told Bosco, who the boss is, and that he should stay away. Which he did ;)

Other than that a few other horses tried to push him around. It was funny looking at this big, fat Fjordhorse tried to chase him, but Bosco was abit faster in the turns than the other horse. He easily gets away from kicks and bites. It's nice to have a horse that is bred to bullfighting, they know how to turn quickly!

This is fun! :D

Bosco de Almeida

That is the name of my new horse! Yes, he is MINE! teehee

Bosco was borned April 21st 2006 in Portugal. He came to Norway with his two brothers, Bilro and Brasil, in december 2007. Since then he has lived at Trollspeilet. Now some pictures!

Bosco, Brasil and Bilro in Portugal 2007

The iberians look so weird when they are young, haha

Same as above, Bosco in the middle

First winter in Norway, Bilro, Bosco and Brasil

And yes, they do get a nice thick wintercoat! spring 08 i think

Summer 2008

Summer 2008

January 2009

June 2009

June 09, first time with a rider. 

Summer 09

Summer 09

Summer 09

September 09

September 09

also summer 09

Now I only have to arrange for transport to get him to his new home. Stupid of me not to take the BE drivers license before winter came!

Bosco is a wonderful, sensitive horse and I can't wait to get him home and start training :D

Picture spam! Dressage show march 7th

I got up early on sunday to watch a dressage show at one of the stables i used to ride at. Unfortunatly I had to go to work so I could only watch a few of the equipages i wanted to see.

Chistral

Inger Line and Chistral

Hjalmar and Tarzan

Winner of LC:3: Kate and Cash's King

First time in a dressage competition! 

second place Lilliane and Carana

Third place: Ida and Drummer Boy

*hmm you say blue ribbon? I say foood!*

12 year old Mette got a ribbon for entering the competition. The horse, Venabus Hårek, is twice the age of the rider, a sweet equipage!

The lap of honour!

Kate and Cash

Siri and Zanday

I wanted to stay and see the last classes aswell, but I had to get to work :(
Another time perhaps !

Layout changes!

The sun is shining, the snow is melting and spring is just around the corner. Black was not the right colour for this blog anymore :D

On another note, Bosco will get a full check up by the veterinary next week. Fingers crossed!

Farewell to a Lady

Earlier today another horse lost the battle against colic.

Lady, a lovely knabstruper died after a serious attack of colic. In the end she just gave up, lied down and refused to get up again. They had to humanely euthanize her at home.

My thoughts go out to all of those special to Lady; Lisa, One and most of all, her knight in shining armour, Petter.

May you rest in peace.

From left to right: Pelle and Hugo, Tore and Vitesse, Petter and Lady, and Luke and Laszlo

Wrestling on horseback; Petter and Luke

Petter and Lady during the midieval festival in Oslo, june 09

Getting ready for jousting

Jousting

Petter and Lady

More photos, and better ones, at this page

Workout

No horse yet, so I have to fill my time with other stuff. Thanks to Maria, I get to ride Charlie a couple of times a week, wich is fun and educational for me! Besides this and alot of work, I've started working out at the gym again. This week I have attended two different classes; catslide and pilates,

Catslide is something I have never tried out before. When i joined the gym and said I wanted exercises that would strengthen the core, the PT recommented that I tried catslide. Catslide is a series of normal exercises like squats, push ups and another exercise that is just called "the plank" in norwegian, you just do them with 4 small slippery mats on the floor. Like in this video, only these guys are ALOT stronger than me and the exercises are alot harder than what i did during my first lesson!

The catslide lesson was only 40 min, but I was a wreck. Went to visit my grandmother right after and I couldn't even lift my arms to pass over the vegetables at dinner. Puh! Later that evening i got really sore, and it was alot worse on friday (workout was on thursday). I usually get sore the day after, and really REALLY sore the second day after a workout like this. So I was actually quite surprised when i woke up saturday morning, feeling better than on friday. score!

Saturday I went out to the stables to ride Charlie once again, and either the workout had done wonders with my body, or all my muscles were sore and stiff so my seat was muuch better than it usually is. haha! I wonder what is correct ;)  Either way, the workout with Charlie went great, even tho he tested me once. He is a wonderful pony who usually goes quite correct and you just have to sit there, but he can be exellent if you just push him a bit, so I did. I was riding along the short wall in the arena, asking for canter. Charlie starts cantering, but just almost, and not with a 3 beat-rythm, no he wants to go in a 4-beat-rythm. So I try to wake him up abit, seat and legs dont do the trick, ad the whip and WHOOPI, he starts bucking. I think it was about 4 or 5, not really big ones, but just big enough for him to earn a correction! First FORWARD then I had to steer him into the snowy wall of the arena, yell at him once, and start cantering again. He got the picture and was a good boy for the rest of the lesson :p

Today I tried something new at the gym, Pilates. I have read and heard alot about how good training this is, so I wanted to try it out. It was abit funny, for one hour I abused most of my muscles and didn't even break a sweat! It was mostly about breathing correctly and using the muscles I really need to work at, the lower abdominal muscles! The million dollar question is, how sore will I become tomorrow?

I will try to have at least one catslide lesson each week, it was so hard, and so much fun! And it really had me working all the muscles I need to work at, I'm too weak! I think I had my very first endorfine shock after the first lesson, I couldn't shut up, haha!