interesting times...

I haven't spent so much horse time recently - we went up to Whangarei to see New Zealand's first ever Natural Horsemanship Games - it was great!! Russell gave a great demo with Oscar and Maverick (as did Tori, our newest instructor with her lovely challenging chestnut mare that reminded me of Shiraz...).

The whole day gave me lots of incentive to get myself together and progress in my own horsemanship.. I'm definiteley so far positive and natural but not particularly progressive...that is changing....I need to progress much faster for my 4 partners.

This is another reason I haven't been around for a while - short family holiday in Oz - Lake Mungo - no phone reception, no internet, bliss!!

And we got there as the roads were passable...any rain and the whole area is closed... (I'm 2nd from the right standing between my bruv and my mum...my sister and nephews make up the group)

I was able to spend some time briefly with the horses today before they had their tetanus jabs. last time Cam had an injection she wasn't that relaxed (ie she moved a step), so I had done a small amount(2 mins!) more prep this time and she was fine. About 95% relaxation- looking to me to see if I had treats rather than thinking about what the vet was doing. A BIG difference to how she used to be pre parelli - vet used to jab and run!

The others were all 110% and always have been.

Funny incident - the vet wanted to listen to all their hearts so I prepared Cam really well so she knew it was just friendly - she is usually so sceptical.The vet moved in a bit quick with Rafiki. To the vets suprise she got a beautiful step by step turn on the haunches as Rafiki thought that was what she was asking, as it was a bit of a driving/porky game AND the last time I rode I had asked her to softly move her fq by touching infront of the girth with my foot. To her credit the vet laughed.

The other funny thing - Shiraz was loose in the arena as usual and when the vet arrived she was proudly standing at liberty on the pedestal - her idea - yay for parelli horses!! Then she proceeded to 'help' with each vaccination....