Completely forgot to post about this!!!

Naughty Mummy!! I completely forgot to blog about Little Prince's first riding lesson!! It was last week after his last day of school, perhaps not that great timing looking back on it!! We arrived a little early at the stables so that Little Prince could be fitted with a hat, luckily they had one in his size (000 1/2!!). He was then introduced to both his instructor and the girl who would be leading the pony, and they introduced him to the pony Ellie. He had a private lesson on his own with the instructor and leader for this first time, and within minutes I could tell that he wasn't going to be that co-operative for them!! They were both a similar age to LMS and he could have done with someone older and with a bit more authority behind them!! The lesson was conducted in the enclosed Sand School and consisted mainly of being led round in a circle and being show how to make the horse turn, stop, go and trot. The instructor also got Little Prince to let go of the reins and touch his head, shoulders and knees, first while stood still and then while the pony was moving. This held Little Prince's interest for a while, but soon they were back to the walking round the arena! Little Prince said he wanted to jump over things, he'd spied the jumps set up in the field next door. He was mightily disappointed that he was only allowed to walk over poles placed on the ground!! And once again back to walking round and round! For a child with attention difficulties it must have been excrutiatingly boring!! As demonstrated by Little Prince yelling "Trot on Ellie! Trot on!" as he continuely tried to get the poor pony to go faster! After about 15 minutes it was obvious that he had had enough, the girls gamely persuaded him to last another five minutes but that was all he could manage. They gave up when he started to pull his feet out of the stirrups and try to get off while they were still walking round!! So Little Prince's first formal riding lesson didn't go as well as I'd hoped! I'm going to contact the stables after we return from our holidays and see if they can devise a more interesting lesson for him, if not I think riding will have to wait until he is a little older and his attention span has improved somewhat!!