FINALLY!!! I managed to ride him today! It's been about 2 and a half weeks since I rode him last haha.

Went down to bring Elliott in this afternoon, and he was absolutely caked in mud! So covered that his bright purple rug was no longer purple, just brown. His face and his legs were just as disgusting! Tbh I think I have a hippo, not a horse!

After spending about half an hour scrubbing him clean, and getting covered in dust and mud, I tacked him up and went round to the arena with Laura and Eric. Suprisingly he stood very still for me to get on, unlike Eric, who decided it was a better idea to spin round and trot off down the long side just as Laura's bum hit the saddle! Ellie just stood there and watched with a very funny look on his face!

After walking him round for about 10 minutes just loosening him off a bit, we had a little trot. Now that was very exciting! For Elliott anyway haha. After shoving his head down and squealling, he gradually settled into a lovely balanced trot, which was suprisingly lazy!

After doing some walk trot transitions I decided to attempt a safe canter. The transition into canter was a bit extravagant to say the least! But again, he gradually settled down into a nice rhythm.

Then we walked to change the rein and have a little rest, where Ellie seized the chance to be naughty! As Laura and Eric trotted down the long side going the other way, Ellie decided to do a mini rear and spin round to try and follow Eric! Little bugger!

We soon had a nice canter on the other rein, and then finished off nice and long and low and relaxed.

I was expecting him to be ten times as bad so that little bit of cheekiness was acceptable I suppose! Lets hope we can carry on working up from here!

Thursday 7th Jan - Elliott's fun in the snow!

There was finally enough snow on the yard to cover the lethal ice underneath (I say enough snow, but it was like 8 inches). So I could finally get Elliott out of his stable for a leg stretch.

Imagine this was posted Dec 17th!

I have been meaning to get Elliott's saddle checked as I know for sure he has changed shape!
Turns out, he's got more muscle, but the weight loss due to winter and made is back dip in more =(.
Luckily I manage to catch Malcolm (saddle fitter) just before he left after doing Francis' pony, Gem. Malcolm had a good look and decided that Ellie needed some more shims put in to lift the saddle off his back a bit more. (The shims are chunks of a foamy substance shaped to fit the contours of Ellie's back where he has atrophy)


Bringing the post forward again, unfortunately I've only been able to ride him once in the past month due to this blooming weather! But Malcolm definitely made the right decision as Ellie went fantastic!
As soon as the snow's gone hopefully we can get back on track, and maybe go to our first dressage test!

An Overview

Hey everyone, my name's Amy. I guess you could call me a photographer, but I'm not amazing at it! Haha. I do love taking pictures though, mainly of horses.
ANYWAY! Back to the subject in hand...


I recently (well about 3 months ago) took on an 11 year old, 17.1hh ex racehorse for reschooling. His name is Cordilla, Elliott to me and you!

When I first took him on, he had a serious lack of muscle. An example of this is the very bad atrophy on his back due to awful fitting racing saddles. He had no topline whatsoever to put it bluntly, and he had a point at the top of his bum!

The picture below shows the lack of topline.

I found him to be a very quick learner from the start, managing to trot two 20m circles soft and round by the second week! Although he was very one sided and really struggled to bend on the right rein. (this is understandable due to the lack of muscle) He soon became more and more flexible and supple so I was able to lengthen his outline, and get him stepping through more.


After the 6 week mark, Elliott started to want to stretch and take the contact forward and down more toward the end of each session. I obviously allowed this as it builds up the back muscles due to the horse stretching down but still working from behind.

We soon started working on the canter transistions. Just like a typical thoroughbred, Elliott liked to run into canter, not always striking off on the correct leg. Suprisingly enough, he quickly learned that he had to jump into his canter, although he took this a bit too seriously at times!

Once the transitions to canter were becoming more consistent, we started to work on the canter itself. Obviously Elliott struggled to find his balance when going into the corners in canter, so I avoided the corners until I felt he was balanced enough on a 20m circle in the middle of the school. Once he was balanced, I started to gently ask him to soften, again he found this simple enough, and was soon cantering on a 20m circle, soft and round, and (almost) in a rhythm!

If you bring my yabbering forward to just before we had this annoying snowy weather, (about a month back) there have been some small improvements, but Elliott seems to be leveling out and learning things much slower (obviously because they are harder).
List of things we can do!

• Leg yield (better on the right rein than the left!)
• Full circuit of canter inc. corners
• Long and low at the start
• To cut it short, we can do a slighty shabby version of prelim 12!

All in all, I thought I'd bring you all up to date with how we're getting on, so I can continue updating you more regularly from now on!