Hello, it's me :)

It has been a VERY long time since I have had the patience to sit down and type something for my blog. If I had any sense in me, I would say that I am lazy, but that would be me just being hard on myself. Usually, about 90 % of the time, I'm actually busy with something. I hardly sit still for a moment, but when I do I'm not in the mood to type away on a keyboard (that and I never know what to say or where to start). Yet, I really want to start blogging about what I am up to :)

Anyway, so lets start with what I've been doing this past 6 months. I spent most of it at a private dressage stable which is run by the very people that first taught me to ride! I was really excited to run into them again, even more so when I was allowed to work there for a bit. As usual, I didn't get paid for my work, but got riding lessons etc. I even had the honor of taking a Lippizaner x Thoroughbred schoolmaster to a show (this was the best show ever!!!!!). My days would start of around 7 am and end at 6 pm. My daily work involved feeding, grooming, lunging and riding the horses. I also went as a groom to shows when I wasn't riding myself.

After having worked at a dressage yard, I have a little more respect for this discipline than what I initially had. I was shown that there are people out there that does it correctly without having to compromise the horse at all.

My family and I have now moved up to Pretoria which is approximately 1400km (870 miles) from where we lived. As per usual I found myself a horsey place to go work at. The owner is a very friendly lady. She used to be an endurance rider when she was younger. She is now a qualified child psychiatrist and uses horses, more specifically miniatures, to help them. At the moment she has 26 horses of which 6 are miniatures. The rest are Arabians and Arabian crosses with one Welsh pony.

At first I was a bit apprehensive about working with these horses. Firstly because they are Arabians (they are a feisty breed!), secondly because some of them are a handful, and thirdly because some of them have little experience under saddle. However, I am going to give it a shot and see what I can do with the lot of them.

I am still torn between following a natural approach or a traditional approach. If I had a horse of my own I would do Parelli with it all the way, incorporating just a little bit of traditional riding into it. I have found Parelli to be something that works for me and the horses I used it on seemed happy to me (they sure looked it!). However, I still believe in the values of lunging as long as it is done correctly. And I have seen horses that sorrowly need a bit of lunging to get them to carry themselves better. I cringe every time I see a horse carrying a rider while hollowing its back and bracing its neck. It looks so painful! I just wish I could find a way to mix natural horsemanship with traditional horsemanship. The question is how much of each to use??? Trust me to get myself mentally entangled :@ !!!!!

Well, this is all I have for now, but I will write some more later ;)

Keep it horsey, lol !!!