Ridewell Trainwell

Such a treat to spend the afternoon/evening visiting Goncalo Linhas and Nara França at Quinta do Palhão yesterday. Jen sums it up perfectly in her post!

I thought Jezzie was the most beautiful horse in all the world, but Zangau may have a slight edge! I got to ride this magnificent horse today 🤩🤩 and my old faithful Xa.

This stunning tall, young lusitano was our study/demo horse today as we delved into lunging horses as an integral part of their training and development.
Sofia was our guide in the demo/discussion and here I've asked her to provide height scale/comparison for this handsome horse

The queen of cones aka Sofia Valença, Valença Classical Riding keeps setting us new patterns to keep herself amused at our expense! The horses are complicit in her treachery as they do their best to knock them over and get out of the intended exercise or otherwise make us look like fools (or both!)🤣🤣

But seriously what good exercises they are, whether in hand or ridden and especially for pirouette preparation in walk/canter. Here Jen and I have a small diamond of cones at each end of the arena where we have to ride a circle keeping the same distance away from the cones then ride travers, keeping that same circle line with the forelegs and haunches towards the cones, without knocking them over.

Luckily we have chief cones collector Fritz to fetch them in at the end of the lesson

My first lesson was on Xá this morning. He gave me quite a hard time in both the walk and canter pirouettes, especially to the left to begin with - because if he turns fast, it's over with (in his mind at least). Of course my left hand grab wanted to take over too and I had to have a stern talking to it and find a better balance to convince Xa we could be partners. I also had to watch out that my outside rein wasnt doing too much in the turn. It was good learning.
At the end we approached passage and piaffe and he was not convinced about passage today -usually our strong point together, but he tried super hard in piaffe and eventually said he supposed he could passage too 🤣🤣

It was super lovely to have Léa Forge along

This morning I had a fabulous lesson with Inês on Distinto.
I had to be mindful of my left hand and really try to keep my hands, up, forward and as a pair.
In the canter half passes and half pirouettes I had to be ready to apply my inside leg to catch him if he went too fast with the shoulders and to help him keep straight on the centreline. The difference in balance when I could help him in the moment and not let my hands try to do the job was clear to see.
I love these screen grabs. It's as if we were breathing, blinking and thinking together. He is a fun horse to play with.

Some of the horses we are working with.

Connections!
My teachers - Xá and Sofia.
Valença Classical Riding

In my happy place!
I so missed coming here last year AND Sofia Valença not able to come to New Zealand, but here I finally am back with my good friend Jennifer The Rider Mechanic and Iain is here too for a couple of days.

We've settled into our rooms in the lovely Valenca Residence (a super new addition since I was last here) and watched some young horse training, enjoyed dinner with the others two ladies staying here and with Sofia, Rui, Pedro and young Luisa (Ines and Pedro's daughter). Such a fun evening. There may have been a bit of port and white Sangria involved too 🤔 🤣🤣 ...not for Luisa! Of course Rui did not lead us astray!

Tomorrow it's all about riding and In hand work. We ride at 9am 🐎