Passed Level 1

Great news - just found out I passed Level 1 - yay!!!

Sent my DVD in to Jackie about a week ago and she emailed me last night - yay! She said a good effort and a pass, some things need a little tweaking but I am going to her clinic at Labour Weekend - double yay.
2nd good news....
Played with Garbo today in the paddock not the arena - Rachel said he was a bit tight in his back end left muscles and to canter him lots. Well she was talking about riding and I am not up to that yet so I decided to get a paddock with a slope and start some hill therapy. She was saying I needed to take him to the track but that's a bit scary for me at the moment - little steps!

I had my 22ft line and we started with yo yo - then circle - and got him up to canter - it was actually easy - he did it on the downhill because it was easier so I just asked him to stay in canter. Did both sides quite well and started travelling so he could canter more straight lines too.

Then - I took the rope off - this paddock is big - probably 5 arenas big. I did yo yo first and then asked for a circle and he trotted round me - as he was heading down hill (towards the open paddock area rather than towards the fence/gate) I thought - this is where he'll just keep going and not circle if he decides to.... BUT he didn't he circled me and then came in! We did it again and he did it again - both ways.... I was so proud my pony! Gave him lots of hugs.

So then I started driving from zone three and doing the stay with me....at trot (to each patch of grass) turning both left and right.... (no rope still).... and he followed me and mirrored my gait (not canter though - have not tried that yet)......

He wandered off once and I zig zagged towards him - really just to re-attach the rope thing to myself - test it at liberty, fix it online, when he turned towards me ears forward so I made the noise Linda tells you to make for going in the saddle in L1 and came trotting over to me!!

I trotted him over to a scary part of the paddock and he wandered away from it after checking it out, so I thought - oh well good time to go and get the rope and take him in..... so started walking back towards the line over the other side of the paddock.... and when he saw I had got like 50ft away he came trotting up to me and walked beside me the rest of the way.

WOW.... so cool

Still worried about this lump on his head though... vet coming Tuesday.