Hop, skip and a jump away

Spring is in the air!

I was so excited to do a horse show with my barn until I saw the price tag. It's an A-rated show so I shouldn't be surprised, but I decided to wait until I could do a course (no matter how poorly, or how long it takes) before going to one of those fancy shows. My instructor was encouraging, but it just didn't feel right. The consideration of the show made me realize all the things I haven't been learning from my lessons, like how to trailer a horse. That seems like a good skill to have, right?

Anyways, yesterday's lesson was awesome. I rode Killian (pictured above), who is very responsive to my leg and we zigzagged through cones beautifully. I was able to keep him out on the 20 meter circle at a canter, and collect him at the trot, even when he was getting tired. We had this one micro moment when he wanted to get off the rail and I struggled to leg-yield him over - I honestly don't know what this has been my problem lately. I do know that my seat and reins are not correct when I get frustrated. Killian's such a great guy and the lesson was straightforward enough that I didn't have to face that demon much, but it's still there.

We had to do a lot of posting trot without stirrups and my legs all but gave out on my at the end of the hour. The two girls I ride with and I did a lot of different balance exercises, like standing up in our stirrups (am I supposed to be over the pommel when I do that because that's what kept me balanced...), two-point with our arms out, two point closing and opening our hip angle, and randomly raising a hand while doing different positions. All at the walk and then trot. My two point has gotten to the point where it doesn't even feel like exercise, it's just another position I could do for a really long time. And I finally figured out I was trying too hard at the posting trot and all I really had to do was get a little out of the saddle - as much as the motion of the horse took me. D told us we looked ready for jumping and I'm pretty excited about it. She has sent us over a jump or two before, but I was pretty sure that was for us to feel comfortable with it so that it isn't this big looming thing in our futures. At least, that's how it worked for me.

In any case, it was a fabulous way to kick-off Easter Sunday, and though my legs are tired today, I'm already scheming to figure out what day this week I could leave early to squeeze in an extra lesson.

Been a long time | Shouldn'ta left you

I'm back-logged about 3 lessons on this blog, although I had a 2 week hiatus because my barn was hosting shows on my lesson days and make-ups would have been too stressful. I came back to lessons and can honestly say I was terrible. The group of 5 of us were on  a 20 meter circle and D would should out a name of who to leave the circle to canter around the ring and rejoin. I was not firm enough with Chewie which meant falling into the circle and canter departs that ended in heading towards his friends rather than sticking on the rail. By the end I started to get what I needed to do. Push him out with my inside leg at the girth, outside leg behind the girth, inside rein keeps nose toward circle, outside rein slightly open. By doing this I was also prepared for the canter depart. And I needed to be firmer, no soft pats with the crop if he wasn't listening. I may have sat a couple bucks, too. Yeehaw.

My following lesson I had trouble keeping another pony on the rail and needed more leg. So obvious, but D had to walk up and really push my leg into the pony, then have me hold the reins steady to really get the point across. Road an older horse and learned he needed my support (re: holding the reins firm and up with elbows back) so he didn't trip because of our balance.

All in all, things are slowly coming together. I'm wondering if this is the sort of thing where your riding gets worse before it gets better, because you are re-learning how to do things correctly. This'll probably happen to me over and over again in my riding career, so I should just get used to it.

We are doing a horse show in less than a month, where I'll be doing a couple of flat classes, so the more progress I can make soon, the better!