I’m not sure how I can spend maybe an hour and a half in the
sun and have my chest turn as red as it is now, when it wasn’t exactly pale
before. No biggie, it’ll brown in a day or so. I swear I could spend three
hours bare legged in the sun and nothing would change though. Anyways, when you see me in person and laugh at my tank top tan lines, know that those happened really badly today.
Well, it’s been a week and Tommy has worked every day of it,
so dare I say he is back in work? It hasn’t been an easy week, we’ve had some
pony moments, we’ve had some thoroughbred moments, but he’s been coming around,
getting more consistent, and grudgingly accepting that he needs to work for a
living. He was very good today, not on spectrum of good riding horses, but for
where he has been the past couple of days he was fantastic. So that ride gets
the gold star for today, beating out Ami and the New Guy. Tom is going out of town this weekend, so I think he’ll
just get longed or hacked rather than worked in the arena.
The New Guy! His name is Cooper; he is a seven
year old, 14.2ish hand, chestnut Welsh/TB cross. I’ve ridden him three times so
far, all of which I enjoyed, so I’ll just go out and say I like him and hope
that doesn’t bite me in the butt tomorrow. He’s been fun, that’s for sure. Also
on my first jump ride he cantered to a 3ft vertical and made it happen. I didn’t
doubt his abilities, but it was a “Isn’t that rushing the relationship, a bit?”
moment for me. I’d be quite happy cantering new horses to much smaller fences,
because I do get worried about my equitation going to crap once the fences get
higher on horses I can’t yet ride 100% because of the lack of familiarity.
Earlier in the week Ami and I were able to go in our
dressage saddle TWICE. We did some lateral work, haunches in and haunches out,
and also worked on stretchy circles. Apparently
when doing lateral work, the inside leg is whatever leg the horse is bending
around, not necessarily the right leg if you’re tracking right, or vice versa. Tom is
really getting after my tendency to pull (at least I don’t hear that dirty word
“elastic” as much as I used to), and a lot of the time I have to assume that
the way he is having me ride is to avoid me pulling. I’m getting better, I assume because I hear “Give!” less, because I think I’m starting to feel when he is going to
want me to give.
And today Ami taught me not to change the warm up routine
and expect a not changed ride, at least changed for the better. I was feeling a bit “This horse needs to grow up
and go in an open frame” so I warmed her up like that, and she was good and open
and such. Then we started jumping and it was like I had no horse. Next time I
change the warm up, I want it to make the ride better, not the ride worse. Our course work could have been better, she is
still over jumping some spooky jumps, but I’m glad she is going at the end of
the day. I’m actually hoping I jump her again tomorrow so I can give her a
better ride, I won’t be able to have a jump lesson again until next Monday,
otherwise.
No comments:
Post a Comment