Out and about

I went to see Echo this afternoon and had a really lovely time. She's doing so well- Ella, her physio, said her back was the best it's been since coming back into work this week, so things are definitely heading in the right direction.

I went out for a walk with Tammy riding her tonight, which was great. She was a bit spooky and, interestingly, Tammy said she was spookier than usual. I think that possibly has something to do with me being there. She always goes out with someone on foot, but when it's me, Echo seems to be a bit of a wuss!

I would really like her to start going out alone now, as she is getting a little bit dependent on having someone next to her. Tammy doesn't have any sensible horses to hack out with, so she won't ride her in company, which is a shame, but the few times she's tried going out on her own, she's stopped dead and refused to move. I'm well aware that Echo does this, and she makes you look a real idiot, doing big pony club kicks and getting nowhere! However, Echo's napping just becomes a habit. If she gets past it once, she'll probably be fine.

Tomorrow evening I'm going to go up and hack her out with Tammy walking with me. We're hoping to do the complete 40 minute circuit with the full amount of trot and then some work in the school too. Now that her back feels so much better, Tammy is going to build up the school work a little more. I actually think this will help her back, as she's usually much more relaxed and soft in the school. Having said this, I don't want to do too much, as it was probably school work that damaged her suspensories in the first place... It's certainly a balancing act!

I've been giving a bit of thought to where to keep her when I have her back from Tammy's. It's likely we'll go back to where we were before, but I'd love somewhere with better hacking. Well have to see. There are a few places with lots of forest hacking (since that's predominantly why we'll be doing it seems an idea to have good places to ride out) but there are other compromises with these places.

Anyway- I should actually get to ride Echo tomorrow, which will be brilliant!

For now, here's a picture of Tammy on Echo today. It's not a great photo, but walking along beside her, it was tricky to take a good one!