Monday, June 16, 2008

2 Lessons in one week!

So I squeezed in another lesson this week on Saturday. I was supposed to be going on a trail ride with our niece but that ended up not working out so I put that money into a private lesson on what was a quite hot and humid Saturday afternoon but the lesson was good so it was worth sweating my butt off in the hot sun. I think this was one of the only times that I remember being at the barn on a Saturday and there was almost no one there except my trainer, which was great. I love going to the barn (very relaxing for me) and I especially love it when there aren't a million other people trying to do their thing.


The only downside is that with hot humid weather you get TONS of flies and they were out in full force...wreaking havoc on Dreamer.


So on my tour de horses I rode another horse this time, Dreamer, a QH paint gelding. This was the first gelding I've ever ridden and I liked it. Horses all seem different to me so I have yet to see the main difference between a mare and a gelding while riding.

Dreamer has his issues and needs to be groomed and tacked in his stall which is a bit scary for me. The idea of big horse and little me in little stall still makes me a bit nervous but he was as sweet as could be and it worked out fine. He is used to that so I think I was more nervous about it then he was. He gets nervous when getting tacked up so my instructor did that since this was my first time riding him. I tightened his girth (very slowly) down in the ring and he was a good boy for that.


We went out to our dressage ring in the field and did some w/t and really focused on keeping my hands low and at the withers, last time we focused alot on leg position so maybe one of these days I'll get them both right at the same time. Dreamer was getting really annoyed with these flies that kept wanting to eat him so he was not paying attention at all and kept trying to kick them off, to which my response was in the form of one too many "oh my gosh's" for my instructor who kindly proceeded to tell me to not do that anymore.

After a few too many minutes of not paying attention my instructor decided it was time for her to get on and show him a thing or two about being a good school horse ;) I have to work on getting the horse to refocus on their job and not get distracted by whatever else is around.

Needless to say Dreamer perked up and forgot all about the aforementioned flies after that and we were off to a good lesson. Continuing to work on doing 20 meter circles and some figure 8's ( which I think i've mentioned I love). Dreamer did a couple of nice ones at the end there and was turning nicely. He actually got on the bit for a second or 2 as well, all tiny but large accomplishments for a new rider.

We went back into the ring to canter and I'm working VERY hard on staying seated and just allowing my hips to go with the motion. A consequence of not doing that is that my inner thigh kept hitting the pommel and now I have a nice bruise there to remind me daily of my poor form. In addition trying hard to keep my shoulders back and not lean too far forward. My transitions also need work so we did quite a few of those and kept trying to get the correct lead which led to many "let's do that again".

Back in the barn Dreamer enjoyed a nice sponge down and walk (more like walk/graze/me pulling/walk/graze/repeat) and some apples and sugar cubes. Sophie got some too of course! Missing her a bit these days since I haven't ridden her in a couple of weeks (maybe I'll take her out in my Friday lesson).

Still working on putting video up here. Need to see where my hubby has them on his computer and how I can place them here.


No comments: