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!

Aliens in space

...Aliens in space shouldn't see you ask for the canter, according to D. As seen in a video I uploaded, us beginners have a way of exaggerating putting our leg behind the girth. Our lesson on Sunday involved us trading ponies twice, so that we got to ride three different ones. I started on Tank and on all three had a similar problem, not using my corners fully at the canter. So I'd cut the corner, end up getting too close to the wall on the long side, have to leg-yield over in time to go over a ground pole at it's center. Wasn't pretty. Also, on one pony I kept getting the wrong canter lead and learned that I had to flex the horse's head to the right slightly to get the right lead. And then my other issue was when the trainer asks me to "go across the diagonal and switch directions" she means the go across the diagonal at the second corner of the short side so that I am making a nice, wide turn rather than a narrow one. Narrow turns are bad for the lesson ponies, a bunch got a little lame already so the trainers are not pleased if we do anything less than a 20m circle. Can't blame them, poor ponies!

Tank!

In other news, Calvin, my practice ride, moved! I didn't get much warning, but I guess they needed to find an indoor with less traffic and had to make the decision in time for the first of the month. He's not any further from where I live, but he's definitely way further than a mile from my lesson barn, which means riding him requires a separate trip. Sigh. I will set aside an occasional Saturday to get out there. Because this is the type of thing equestrians deal with. All the time, it seems!

Flying to close to the sun (or pony butt)

My group lesson yesterday started out pretty normally. There were four of us, myself being, per usual, twice as old as everyone else (yeah, I double checked, exactly twice as old as everyone else). I rode Pan who is a really wonderful little guy that probably has a lot of ribbons to his name in short stirrup. He responds really nicely to my leg, so I could just focus on keeping my shoulders back and looking good on him. We did our whole lesson in a "ride" (riding in a straight line, pony length apart). Went fine for the most part until we started cantering in said ride. Picture this: We are third in line, the first pony starts to canter. The pony in front of me (good ole' Joy) was not too eager to get into the canter...but Pan was! I had to really sit back and hold him at bay. Once Joy started cantering she let out a couple bucks - not sure if they were special delivery to Pan or just feeling like the whole thing was beneath her. That's when I maneuvered Pan away from the ride, figuring I'd pull him away from the bucking, without the pony behind me crashing into us.

But pushing Pan off the rail brought some sort of unbridled surge of energy and we were off, galloping at full speed past ALL the ponies. For a moment there, the only thing running through my brain was "WHEEEEEEEEEE!" which was promptly cut off by D very firmly suggesting half-halts. Oh, right. Bad pony?

At the end of the lesson, needless to say, I got a lecture about how ponies in a ride will do whatever the ponies in front of them do unless you show them that they should defer to you as their leader. And also, learn how to half halt properly, for the love of God and all that is pony.

Oopsie.

No regrets.

Combination frustration

A moose like me...walk on ice like that?!

Started out my 2-ride Sunday on Calvin in the indoor. It was an icy walk from the barn that houses his stall, but we managed. I forgot my crop and felt silly, everyone was busy working on their own thing and I didn't want to go back and get it, but I ended up getting him to canter briefly, though he wasn't enthused. I think he was tired. It wasn't the most groundbreaking ride, but I liked being able to do what I want, rather than constantly being in a class when you are told what your every move should be. There must be something valuable in that!

The lesson was with a three girls who are all around my ability. We did some familiar exercises, but then the lesson culminated in doing a pattern one at a time that Joy and I completely messed up. It's never the pony's fault, so let's just say I was having difficulty communicating with her. The pattern was:

Canter a 20m circle starting at C, canter a 20m circle at E where there was also a ground pole to navigate, canter a 20m circle at A and come to a hault at A.

I would say my biggest issue was the ground pole coming around the circle at E. I ended up at an angle instead of head on to the ground pole. Once I was at an angle, I was way, way off track from my final circle and ended up falling in and coming to a halt quite a few feet from A.

Correct Diagonals: No peeking!

My Sunday morning 1-hour group lesson was pretty fun. I was on Joy again. We worked on feeling the correct diagonals at the trot and leads at the canter. The leads at the canter were kind of cheating because our ponies automatically took the correct lead on the rail, but maybe in the future we will try it down the center line. I would LOVE to learn to do flying lead changes. D had us ask for a trot without looking down and start posting on what felt like the correct diagonal. That was pretty easy on the left rein, but Joy was super bouncy on the right rein so it was harder to guess.

I am getting more comfortable maneuvering around other people in the ring. I still get confused sometimes when everyone seems to be circling in different directions at different speeds, but I somewhat broke that habit where I just stare in fear at something coming at me so my pony thinks that's where I want to go.


As I may have mentioned, the two students I lesson with now are younger than me, maybe 12 or so. At the end of the lesson they got a lecture on making sure to note what they need to improve on from lesson to lesson. And that, my friends, is why this blog exists.

Half seat everything

Shout out to Deborah from My Examined Life who mentioned in a comment that difficulty keeping the half seat at the canter can be helped by other gates and even bareback. My trainer was of teh same mind and yesterday our lesson involved EVERYTHING at the half seat. Okay, not everything, but walk, trot, canter, up and down transitions, circling without letting my butt touch the saddle. At one point, my puny muscles got tired and my leg started to swing back by the end of the lesson. I felt bad because it looked like I wasn't learning, when I was totally getting it. The middle of the lesson was awesome though, but then, I was riding Joy! Joy will keep cantering if I keep my leg on, and I'd be interested to see if I get another chance to do the same on Tank, who would prefer to slow down rather than keep going.

Also, there was snow falling off the roof and spooking the horses. Joy just sort of stuck her head up in surprise, but kept going going. She's a no-fuss, do-her-job 14hh pony, while the 17hh warmbloods and OTTBs were losing their shit and one dumped a student. I know, it's dangerous and not funny...but I just love old ponies for this reason :D