Busy, busy, busy!

Its amazing to have been given so much freedom over the horses, I've been managing everything; from what time they come up to the compound (their evening paddock is about 5-10 minutes walk away) to who rides whom and when, taking bookings, and taking guests out riding.

Guest riders

The Easter period has been exceptionally busy at the lodge. With around 54 people staying here for the last 10 days, most of which have wanted to ride, Dowdy and I have certainly spent a lot of time in the saddle! It averages out to around 3 hours of riding a day...

It's hard to focus in low light on the back of a moving horse, but you get the idea....

On a personal level, I've been practising riding with my carrot stick, something I don't do nearly often enough. I've been setting Dowdy different riding challenges, such as feet in/out of the stirrups, riding without stirrups, standing in your stirrups etc, and those same challenges have applied to me!

The life!!!

Most of the guest riders are beginners, or have a limited amount of experience. It can be a bit hair raising at times, especially when you've got a group of 12 people riding at the same time. One learns to trust the horses a lot, they definitely are a great bunch. I would love to have more time here, firstly to Parelli train all the horses and Dowdy so that I could show the riders some Parelli/riding basics that the horses will easily respond to.

Me riding Bahati

Although I like to handle all the horses, my favourite is Bahati, and I've been riding him consistently over the Easter period (from the 1st April until now; around 10 days!) I've been riding in my Parelli halter, and he is already responding brilliantly. I've been asking him to do some yielding exercises, such as moving his hindquarters/forequarters and eventually, sideways (leg-yield) I was also proud to safely put a child on him; when I arrived I was told that Bahiti is not used for the guests as he is too fiesty (dominant). Its amazing to see the results after having ridden him for around 20 hours. He is already so much more chilled!

Geoff and Vicky have asked me to stay on for a couple more weeks, Anja has to be back for school, but I could easily stay on. I'll need to do a bit of schedule planning, but it looks as if I'll be staying :yay!

Proud to have put a child on my 'noble steed:' Bahiti