Saturday, June 26, 2010

The first outing

Stalin had his first real outing today. The WEC pony series to do PC tests A & B. He was awesome, no huge tantrums or leaping fits. Had a look at the jumping after his tests.
The first test was definitely his practice run. Once he went into the arena, his attention finally clicked back to me and he did everything he was told. The second test was much better. He got good marks and comments in each test and I think he is starting to grow a fan club.

Hopefully we will be 'upgrading' to prelim for the next day and giving a canter a go in the arena, as well as some jumping (maybe!).


Friday, June 25, 2010

Once upon a time the furry little fat monster couldn't even trot with a rider on his back on a curve without falling over. Now he starts cantering whenever he feels like it, and if I actually ask him to canter will canter around and around the arena (except for the little nappy area's). He's getting better about picking up the left lead as well. He seems to really like his new saddle, seems freer through the shoulder.
Going to his first 'real outing' tomorrow!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

They grow up so fast

This morning while lazing around procrastinating about doing homework and going to work I opened up the Stalin's add. The skinny, gangly and to be honest, quite ugly looking thing that was advertised as "a very attractive boy who loves attention & is a super quiet type" has become such a different pony.

His first 'real outing' is in 4 days time. It may only be 2 of the 'walk and trot training dressage tests' but it's a milestone. The first time we attempted a trot he tipped over and gave me a nice concussion, yet now we can canter around the arena on the right lead (most of the time).

The scrawny little bag of bones and worms that came off the transporter is now a fat, healthy, big and muscly star. Yes he's still a very spethal boy and has a lot to learn and must remember that Mum is actually the boss and he doesn't know better than her. But he is awesome.

Hopefully everything will go well this weekend and he'll start to develop a fan club :D

Top image: 23 jan. Bottom image: 22 March

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Getting bigger


Stalin is now lunging happily at a walk and trot on both reins with a saddle on. He had a bridle on the first time a couple of days ago and was more unimpressed that he couldnt eat the bit than anything.
Ive also sat on him a couple of times, after lots of bouncing around and leaning over him.









Friday, December 25, 2009

Slowly becoming a big boy

Fiona is slowly teaching Stalin to lunge. It is going to be a very slow process until his baby brain can concentrate for longer than about 2 seconds.
He is happy wearing a roller, saddle blanket and boots already, altho he's also quite happy to chew on them and rub his face all over them as well.















After he'd had a very short trot on the lunge he got to pretend his was a big boy and stand at the mounting block so I could lean over him. I think I have brought another Dawky since Stalin walks into the mounting block everytime and doesnt care.
He was more worried about all the flies on his legs than having me leaning on him, but he stood nice and still.

Then Fiona pretended to leg me up while I bounced up and down feeling sort of stupid. He didnt even care when I bounced up and leaned over his back. Such a cruisy pony.

Im heading to the beach for a few days now so I will look forward to seeing if Stalin has mastered moving forwards on the lunge when I get back :D

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Meet Stalin

Stalin finally arrived at Dad's on the 18/12/09, my early christmas present to myself. He is a 13.1hh (yay for approximate measuring), 3yr old bay gelding. By Blue Confession out of Star Kingdom's Sophie.

He arrived too late at night (and everyone, especially me, was too stressed) to get piccies so here's some from the next day. Plus he'd been on the truck for 9 hours and was more interested in eating than being a ponce.
















To show his condition when he arrived














He is incredibly relaxed about everything, so he got a fancy new christmas pressie too.
He also got a nice dose of wormer!