Today was, quite clearly, not a good day for riding. At least not for me. First, my whip broke off towards the end. I knew I should have gotten a new one during the horse show. ;P Now I have to wait a year if I want the same, or track down something similar from another vendor. Plus, its another thing on my rapidly growing list of horsey things I need to buy. It currently reads boots (my old ones have only thin, smooth soles left, with no traction at all, plus they’re cracking), leggings (to go with my jodhpurs), hat (I think its a bad sign when the insides of it are crumbling), a couple of shirts/t-shirts (just to look a bit more presentable) and, now, a whip too.
The riding itself didn’t start so poorly, though. I was assigned Sammy, and then I ended up switching with Gamir’s rider during the brushing & tacking up since she’s a bit scared of him. He tried to take my fingers off again when I was bridling him, and this time I noted it to the instructor once we were down in the arena, since he’s never been quite so bitey before. Sammy seemed a bit testy too, as well as quite a bit frisky. I should have known he’d have lost of extra energy given that they’ve had an extra rest over Easter,
Once I got on him, I had to fight with myself from the start to not feel nervous, and I had to constantly remind myself to keep a deep, steady seat and an upright upper body. Not sure why, but I must have been picking up on something. He was pretty calm, though, so I am not really sure at all, and once we started working it felt better again. He wasn’t too rushy in the trot, and responded quite well to my aids. My instructor also commented that I had taken charge more decisively from the get-go this time, and had him working quite well early on. So, it could have been a pretty good lesson.
Though, of course I had problems with my legs. I guess they were a bit tired from our extra long walk yesterday (an attempt to get rid of some of the Easter food), plus Sammy is so broad and so good at pushing you away from his inner side that it can be really difficult for a short-legged person (like me) to keep her legs in a good position. Especially given that I have that habit of pulling my leg up when I use it anyway.
However, I think I could have improved on that if only the exercise for today had been a different one. We were supposed to canter for half the arena, including on a 20-meter circle at the end of the arena, and then trot through the other half, including on two 10-meter circles off the sides of the arena. Problem was, we were divided into two groups, four in each, and one group cantered on the upper half and trotted on the lower and vice versa.With Sammy, this is impossible. Oh, it worked for a few laps, but then he a) learned the exercise, meaning he’d spend the trotting half gearing up for the cantering half and b) got really, really excited given that there was almost always a horse galloping fairly close to him. So, after a while I simply could not keep him at a trot any longer, and as soon as I started feeling that way, I ended up leaning forward and holding on to really, really short reins.
On Sammy, this doesn’t really produce any bad effects, and he does allow himself to be turned onto small circles quite easily, so it wasn’t like he was out of control. But I was not enjoying myself. So, I settled for trotting, and doing a lot of circling, which after a while did soften him up a little bit. My instructor was pleased that I managed to do this at least, and didn’t just stay frozen in the middle, but I am still annoyed with myself for being so damn nervous. Especially on a super-nice horse like Sammy.
However, I spoke a bit to my instructor about how I should tackle him when he gets like this, and she agreed that he is very, very hard to improve in those situations. He gets a very one-track mind when he thinks its all about running around, and trying to slow his trot by posting more slowly than he trots is almost impossible because he pretty much throws you out of the saddle with his strides at whatever pace he chooses. Still, not happy about today’s lesson. I am definitely hoping I’ll get a chance to take some private lessons soon, because I sure need it right now. Then again, if I am stuck in a bit of a slump, I may just have to wait it out.