longlines ... improving!

I decided to longline tonight, thinking it would be easier on my foot (wrong!) and also to see how she's working.

she stood like a lamb whilst I put the longlines on in the arena - shows how far she's come, as it's not that long ago that doing that was a nightmare of movement! and tangles!


then she set off at a rate of knots and it took me a while to get her to slow down, which resulted in my having to jog to keep up!

BUT she was reaching for the contact, and round, and so on...

so we did about 10 minutes of trot both reins ( a few times) then 10 minutes of walking round the school and practising circles ... which worked well!

then back to trot again.

quite unnervingly, she had her nose practically on the floor a few times and I wasn't sure about that, but she was relaxed when doing it. The walk work was better than the trot, but it was all good to see.

the bandages are having the desired effect on the swelling -in that there is none when i take them off, so that's good!

Then tonight we went out to the Sage Gateshead
to see/hear Richard Thompson (a founding member of Fairport Convention) "1000 Years of Popular Music" tour, which was excellent! there was he, and two women. Judith Owen was fantastic, huge range of styles, fantastic voice. Debra Dobkin was the drummer/percussionist/and singer, also great.

and I got some nice photos of the Gateshead Millenium Bridge on the camera phone, together with one of the Tyne & High level Bridges - shame I hadn't realised i was getting so much more in the pics...!