Hacking, lunging and horrid weather!

Tilly yesterday in the lovely weather!

Tilly has now had six weeks off and seems to have recovered from her injury so she is back on her 'Kate Moss' haynets (double nets) and I am slowly bringing her back into work.  Yesterday she had the Equilibrium pad on then I mounted in the indoor just to be on the safe side before taking her out on a hack round the block.  This is about 50 minutes and consists of lanes, Longmoor lane which can have very heavy traffic on it and then through the woods and back down the tracks past all the horses!  She was so well behaved and just had a look at the new pond that the landlord is creating in the wood and did a little piaffe going past Griff and Lily who both came to the fence to see us.  I was really pleased with her.  So today I mounted in the school again and went off in the gale force winds and rain up the tracks and to Wag Hill which is the wood at the end before turning round and coming home, again with help from Griff and Lily.
Mez has been off since Saturday after her Championship debut so I took her in the school and lunged her with the draw reins over her withers to encourage her to stretch down.  See below.
I enlisted Peter's help bringing the babies in at lunch time today and thank goodness I did or they would have both been careering around the yard as the wind as so strong!
Patsy came in on three legs on Saturday so she has been in the stable since but as she could make box walking an Olympic sport, I turned her out (or Chris did as he was here at the right time!) in the small paddock today.  She is nearly sound now so I asked Peter to bring her in at lunch time too!  For those of you who do not know Patsy she is a TB owned by my BF who lives in Oz as the moment.  Sarah is riding her to keep her ticking over but she is not the easiest horse and could be very misunderstood in the wrong hands.  She loves to stand on end when being led if life gets a little exciting!

Below is the article from the H&H forum regarding the draw reins.  I have used this on Mez twice now and feel it is helping her to learn to carry out her transitions in a more balance manner.  Her canter is also improving.


Imho this is better than a Pessoa (as well as being about 10x cheaper) because all it does is give a light alternate tweak to the bit as the horse's foreleg is in the stance part of the stride, whereas the Pessoa (unless fitted loose) seems to give quite a tug to the bit when hindleg is in stance phase.
The standing pic shows that it doesn't need to be tight AT ALL, it encourages the horse to stretch forward downwards without being tight. I'd never fit it tightly, in case horse hated the restriction, panicked, ran back, etc.
I always do the knot off-centre so it doesn't press down on the spine. I usually use it without a saddle, tbh it's prob better that way because it can slide easily then, I had to keep checking it hadn't got caught under the pad.

It is probably better to use a nylon draw rein that will slide easily under the horse's 'armpits', and that it also works clipped to the sides of a lungeing cavesson or even a headcollar, it doesn't have to go to the bit rings.