schooling matilde

sabin was so inspired by her lesson with ruth that she wanted to school matilde today - we invested in some really nice side reins and sabin tried her new dressage saddle on her. it was a very good workout for both of them.

matilda is a fine pony

matilde was delivered to us yesterday and she settled immediately into her stall and began eating her fresh new hay. she was fed countless carrots and sabin tried to teach her to use her waterer (she has to press her nose against a little lever to make it fill). we let her have a rest after the long journey in the giant horse van and then we want back and sabin rode her for a little while. we started off on the lunge line, but sabin was quickly confident enough to ride without it.

we're keeping her at the neighbor's. they have a nice sandy outdoor arena and 6 horses of their own. they have two daughters - one 18 and one 7, who both ride. the 18-year-old is a serious competitor for the danish national team in jumping and there were some seriously HIGH jumps set up in their arena. we can't wait to see her using them. she's got three warmbloods that she uses for both jumping and dressage. then they have one broodmare who is expecting a colt any day and two ponies. matilde is so fine and pretty, she fits in very nicely.

winding down riding at this school

this weekend, we had our last lessons at the local riding school, but i haven't posted any pix of riding of late, so i thought i'd catch up a bit. both days this weekend, sabin rode her favorite horse, zidan. it was a bittersweet parting from him and i think he will miss her as much as she misses him. they have a special relationship.

zidan

sabin and zidan get a bit of instruction from peter on saturday

boogie was a naughty pony last sunday. that's cindy right ahead of him. isn't she cute?

here's a hint of the naughties.

being good for a moment.

sabin learned a lot when the instructor helped her school him out of some naughtiness.
it's actually good for you to ride a difficult horse.

we're looking at horses at a horse "dealer" on tuesday. we're pretty excited about that. he's where the school has bought most of their horses, so we're hoping he has the right one for us!

riding of late

last friday, we stopped by the riding school in the little town where we're going to live. we just wanted to see what it was like and talk to them about getting started when we move over there in may. luckily, the nice riding instructor said sabin could take a trial lesson immediately, joining in with a group lesson that was starting in 30 minutes. and she led sabin over to the stable, where she introduced her to a horse named bonnie and sabin got to ride right away, even tho' she was wearing rubber boots, leggings and a dress and had to borrow a helmet. they're a bit more rough around the edges over there, but bonnie was a nice horse and sabin had a good ride. sabin will start "pony games" on monday evenings and will have another regular lesson a week when we move over in may.

bonnie in the narrow aisle of the stable.

sabin riding bonnie - the arena at the new riding school is much larger than at the old one.

riding bella at lessons on saturday. it was her first time on the steady little black & white pony.

a recent lesson on sjaik - she really loves him at the moment. he's a super pony.
one of those worth their weight in gold.
but she's already a bit big for him.

a bit of jumping on sunday on zidan.

he was back to his normal, agreeable self and they had a great ride.

sabin really has chemistry with him.

i took a small video of sunday's jumping, but have to figure out how to turn it into a movie that i can share. google photo uploader not working at the moment anyway, so even if it was done, i couldn't share. but i will share soon.

an eventful weekend of riding lessons

it's not really all that much warmer, but we've convinced sabin to return to her riding lessons. on saturday, there were only four small girls there, so they had a lesson on the lunge line for the first time. they used a vaulting surcingle and even got to try standing up on the horse! sadly, i only had my iPhone along, so i don't have great pictures of it, but i do have this one:

sabin's saturday teacher is the son of the woman who owns the stable and he's SO great with the kids. we're just so pleased with all of the different instructors sabin has had there, top quality all of them in their own way. and the horses, i can't say enough good about the quality of the lesson horses either. sabin's ridden such a variety - from warmbloods to this icelandic pony to a beautiful palomino pony on sunday. his name is sjaek (sheik) and as you can see, she was really pleased to ride him. she had previously prided herself on only riding the big horses, but her ride on sjaek was just the thing to give her back her confidence after a couple of super cold lessons on frisky horses with freezing fingers. he's really a super pony and she had a great ride.

back to riding

sabin took a few weeks off her riding lessons because it's been so cold. when it's so cold, her hands completely freeze, despite trying several different kinds of fancy supposedly wintery riding gloves and then she feels she can't properly hold the reins and have control of the horse. it was making her dislike riding and there were tears. but yesterday, it was a bit warmer and i encouraged forced her to go.

her teacher was very understanding and let her ride Silverstar, the horse she rode at her very first lessons. he's super steady and doesn't pull any tricks and doesn't do any naughty snortiness. still she didn't want to canter and rode into the center when the others cantered. then, the teacher had them put their stirrups up so they were riding without stirrups. after trotting for awhile that way, she asked them to canter and sabin just cued Silverstar into a canter like nobody's business. husband and me laughed pretty hard. she wouldn't canter with the stirrups, but it was no problem without.

she managed to visit all of her favorites horses and give them a carrot after the lesson. especially Zidan.

a danish nativity play

this autumn, sabin chose to go to something called "mini-konfirmand" at the church next to her school. she had so much fun doing that every wednesday afternoon that she signed up to be part of the nativity play that they were going to put on at the church. last thursday afternoon, there was a matinee of the play at the church. then, today, sunday, they performed again during regular church services. here are some scenes from both...the pictures aren't my best work, as i didn't want to use flash - both because i was so far away it wouldn't make a difference and well, i hate flash.

the church as we approached on thursday at 4 p.m.

it was so beautiful with all of the lights.

and you have to bear in mind that the sun had been set for half an hour by then.

a view inside the church.

sabin played a "julehjerte" - a christmas heart.

it's a nativity that tries to explain the meaning of christmas

for a contemporary audience.

it was difficult to capture everyone standing still.

the whole group.

a little glazed over from the photo session at the end.

a quick shot captured by karoline during the play.

and a couple of gratituous horse shots

from the last weekend of riding lessons 'til january.

it was COLD!

sabin's new warm riding jacket and riding pants came in handy.

they're her main christmas present, but she got to open them early.

it was THAT cold.

she loves zidan at the moment.

she really clicks with him.

his fuzzy ears make him look like a teddy bear.

riding mindy

mindy is a real live registered pinto

this is the second week sabin has ridden her.

she has a bad habit of pulling the bit away and almost jerking sabin right off over her head.

she hasn't succeeded tho'.

another saturday, another new horse to ride

it seems like all of our favorites at the riding school are lame at the moment - lizette has been laid up for a couple of weeks (i knew for longer than that there was something up with her left rear) and now felix is on a rest regime. we also saw that coming, because for two weeks in a row he naughtily refused to canter to the right and would do all kinds of alarming evasive maneuvers to avoid it. i was pretty sure there was something more to it than just naughtiness. but, i suppose that's the way of lesson horses, they're used all day long, probably a good 6 days a week by a variety of experienced and inexperienced riders and they will eventually come up lame.

so yesterday, much to sabin's relief, she didn't have to ride snehvide (snow white), she got to ride a new (to her) horse called zidan. he was a little cutie and aside from biting me while i was trying to straighten his halter (i think he thought i was handing him a treat) and then biting the bridle when i went to put it on him (he actually took it in his mouth and "held" it for me, while i unhooked the halter), he was a sweetie. with the help of a stool, she was even able to get on him by herself. sabin really enjoyed the ride. it was a rare sunny day (november is often sunshine-free), so they got to go out on a "tour," in the fields. sabin loved that. in fact, she just whined that they won't be able to do it today because it's raining.

here they are on the distant horizon. look at that green winter wheat and the winter sunshine!

they came back and cantered and she was just a blur as she went by.

we ride again today at 2 p.m., so we'll see which horse she rides this time.

galloping girl

was playing with shutter priority settings on my camera today. as you can see, i'm not there yet (need giant, fast sports zoom lens next), but i loved the motion in these galloping shots...

latest riding lesson pix

because mom wanted to see our latest riding lessons...

she's riding lisette, the danish warmblood, for both lessons on the weekend now.

they seem to have been made for one another.

you can see how good she sits in comparison to others

they were told to lean back at the canter

they're learning balance,

so that's why she's leaning back like that.

far's giving her a leg up.

it was a bit dusty in the arena.

she likes to ride bareback at the end for the warm-down.

she still sits well, even without the saddle.

very concentrated.

riding outdoors for the sunday lesson.

we even went out on a little tour outdoors.

and back again for a few rounds bareback before sunday's lesson ended.