Riding Diary: 11

Horse: Quiz

Time: 1 hr

Ride: ... ugh. I had one of those, "goddddaaaamnit" rides, you guys know what i'm talking about?

I just, couldn't.figure.my.shit.out. and to top it off I was having a "dumb day", just one of those days when you are not an intelligent person - these days rarely occur in my life, and when they do I become a train of stupidity, derailed and mowing down buildings with nonsensical babble. Jesus.


Anyways, I began with our typical warm-up posting trot. Sometimes I feel like Quiz tests me in the warm up, sometimes she's whizzing around the arena waaaay too fast, and then I ask her to slow down because, "frick child, this is a warm up", and she breaks down into this painfully slow trot that makes me look at her like, "Quiz... wtf.. are.. you.. doing?" Say that real slow, because that's how fast my bum is rising out of the saddle.

We then trotted some pole-bending style poles that were set up, and for the most part we did good. Aside from the fact that I get so absorbed in my body, and Quiz, that I become that aforementioned train, about to bulldoze other arena-users, "oops, sorry, didn't mean to get so close to you, woops, sorry, eek" - that's me. I know it's getting especially bad when my trainer is like, "LOUISA, stop passing so close, look where you are GOING"... eep, okay, i'll try, i'm sorry.


From our warmup we went into the lope, I thought that it was going to be one of those beautiful loose-rein easy-peasey-lemon squeazy days. I was wrong. Quiz was rushing me like a quarter back (.. is that what QB's do, they rush right?) and I was seemingly never prepared. So, we worked on me checking her back... again...

Can we go back to jogging? I can do that. Remember? Quiz and I turn into the WP queens with the sparkly jackets... let's go back there.

We attempted the pole pattern... yeah, that was disgusting. It was frantic, and I atleast thought she would just rush the shit out of it, but then at the very end, she broke down into a trot. Facepalms all around.

My trainer commented that my releases were simply too big and Quiz was taking advantage of them. So, lesson #1 - dial down the release, a simple wrist flick is all she needs right now. To counter Quiz's breaking down into the trot when I ask her to slow, we get lesson #2 - use a cap, aka your left leg. Every time I ask Quiz to back off, and slow down, my left leg has to be engaged to keep her consistently moving forward. Finally, Lesson #3, have a better hold on the reins when asking for a lope!

Then, Quiz all of a sudden turned into a noodle... right infront of me! All of a sudden I was riding a noodle. Her head was going one way, her bum the other, her legs were splaying about and for a minute (okay... more like 20...) I thought for sure that noodley little horse was trying to noodle me right into the rail. I'd tried to correct her head, and away her chest would go, I moved her hip back, her head would go the other way... all of a sudden my knee was getting glaringly close to the rail...


wtf noodle horse? stop that. 


We finished up the lesson with a nice, slow lope that felt much better, and more relaxed, but that was after an hour of me feeling like an unbalanced sack of potatoes with iron-hands, and my horse morphing into a noodle... so, yeah, we probably should have had a slower lope at that point in the ride.

For Next Time: .... do everything right. duh..

Uhm, smaller releases, and continuing to push Quiz when she attempts to break down on me. Don't be afraid to use your hands! You aren't going to break her face off with your small midget hands!

Oh, and mainly... don't write about how good your lesson was last time, because then you get noodle horse extraordinaire.