Birthday Cakes

I went home last week and had my friends round for a late birthday party! One of them made me this lovely cake and I had to put it on here! It had a glittery pink horse shoe and a rosette with 22 on as that is how old I am! The candles were also little ponies that were pink! And if anyone is wondering, Boggi is my nickname but that's another story! The cake was also yummy! Thanks Holly for making it for me :-)

While I am writing a post on cakes I thought I would add a photo of my birthday cake I had for my 21st birthday. This one had a black horse in a paddock with a little bale of hay!

Hope I haven't made you all hungry now!

Love Laura
xxxx

No Stirrups!

I saw this first video on Horse and Hound, it is of Robert Whitaker jumping the puissance wall bare back! They are currently looking into if this is a new world record for the highest jump bareback! Surely it is!

This reminded me of the Spanish Riding School (lots of photos and info. to come), where in some of their schooling jumps they have to ride the horses with no stirrups! It was amazing to watch, the horses were beautiful and so well trained!

I will talk more about the 3 different types of movements the horses do in this video in later posts. I particularly liked how calm the horses were when performing these movements and they just got them to sit more onto the hindlegs to prepare for it.

I find trotting hard enough with no stirrups, when I canter I try and walk as little trot as possible in between! I used to like jumping with no stirrups and bareback but don't think I would like it as much these days!

(None of these videos belong to me)

Love Laura
xxxx

Update And Ancient Coat Colour

I am home this week and I have been for 2 little rides on Trooper. He is allowed to be walked for 15 minutes a day and his walk feels the same as before as he is striding forwards nicely. He is very fluffy now and hard to brush. I have taken some photographs of him that I will upload when I go back to university although it seems to be permanently dark at the moment so they are not the best quality.

I'm finally going to watch the Spanish Riding School in Wembley tomorrow so I am going to take lots of photographs! Carl Hester and Lee Pearson are also going to be there!

Here is a link to a news story I thought I would share with you about the coat colours of ancient horses.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15619885

I have got a lot of work at the moment so I am finding it hard to find the time to write blog posts as often, I will do them when I can though!!

Love Laura
xxxx

Hay-Net Blog Of The Day!

For any of you that hasn't been on there yet, Hay-net is a website hosting horse blogs. People can become a member to read the blogs or to write their own! I link my new blog posts on my page on there sending them to blogger! Check out their website if you haven't already. It's a really good idea and has lots of other things as well as blogs such as forums and an "Equine Agony Aunt". Here's a link to their website... http://hay-net.co.uk/

I had an email this morning saying I was their blog of the day so I thought I would put off writing my essay on the methods of analysing silage for another hour and do a quick post! I am going to do a bit of a catch up post for any new people coming to my blog.

I am very excited to be going home next week to see Trooper who I have not seen since September as I am at university doing a masters in Animal Science.Trooper is 22 years old but still acts the same as he did as a 9 year old.He injured his tendon in September and he has been having all sorts of treatments and is healing really well. He is now being ridden at walk for 5 -10 minutes a day!

Here are some photos of him my mum sent me the other day! This is the first year he has not been clipped since we first got him (he didn't need to be because we can't exercise him properly yet). On the photos he looks really fluffy and very muddy!

As you can see I think he is enjoying not having a rug on when all this mud is around! I feel sorry for my mum as he has to be ridden for 5 minutes a day at the moment so she is having to brush him every day to ride him for just 5 minutes!

And please follow if you are not already!

Love Laura
xxxx

Vaulting

I don't know what is more impressive, the woman doing handstands on the horse or the horse's perfect canter! A bit different to Troopers squealing broncos when he goes on the lunge! Please don't try this at home, I know I wont be!

Love Laura
xxxx