Sunday 11 April 2010

Riding - Learning to Trot.

Hannah started having riding lessons at my Godmother's farm today. She is having an hour a week of pony care and riding and absolutely loved the first one! Until now she has only been allowed to ride on walk outs at the riding school we were going to, but today she was able to collect the pony 'Chunk' from his field, groom him, learn to tack up and then have an individual lesson with a lady who practises natural horsemanship.

As part of her lesson she did riding exercises in the saddle, learnt the aids she needs to use to tell the pony want she wants him to do, and trotted for the first time. She actually got the hang of rising trot quite quickly, she was so excited and really proud of herself!



After her lesson the instructor gave us a demonstration of Natural Horsemanship - it was amazing! She can ask Chunk to do anything just by hand motion or body movement - he doesn't wear a bridle, just a head collar, and all his directions are given by quiet voice request or leg movement when he is ridden. Absolutely fascinating :-)



2 comments:

Fiona said...

When I lived in the UK I used to be part of a natural horsemanship group - it was such a wonderful experience, and changed my riding forever. What a blessing for Hannah to have discovered it at such a young age. I think that a deep relationship with an animal is such a gift.

windingcirclelifeschool said...

Our eldest has been doing horseriding for a while now and for the first time ever she was asked to use a whip last weekend...she was appalled.Hannah is lucky to be able to learn to ride using natural/parelli method.I wish we had someone close who could teach our kids!Hannah looks like a natural on Chunk!