Riding Diary: 16

Horse: Quiz

Time: 1 hr

Ride: Well, it is officially spring! Riding in +20 c in the outdoor arena at 7 pm... life is good. I was a little worried about how our ride was going to pan out since I, nor her owner, had ridden her since last Monday, and she was zipping around the arena at mach 10 during the warm up.

We did a looooot of posting trot (owwie), including posting a trot around the barrels as a warm up. My trainer had me circling her tighter and tighter about 3-4 times, then trotting out, and then doing the same at the other side of the arena.

Then we moved outside (thank you lawd - I was sweatin' buckets at this point), and we trotted the barrel pattern. Quiz and her owner are doing a gymkhana on the weekend (yes, I am unbelievably jealous... as i always am when I am reminded that Quiz is, in fact, not my horse) so we probably have to you know, try barrels.

Here's where rider error comes completely into play - my god, you'd think i was a 2 year old the way I was getting my lefts and rights mixed up, I couldn't even figure out what "right, left, left" meant, let alone "right, right lead, left, left lead, left, run home, stop" meant... embarrassing. Thankfully my trainer humours me, and I finally just said, "walk me through this, my brain is mush", and I got myself together and reminded my brain that, yes brain, we are indeed almost in our last year of University.

Then we slow loped the pattern, we zoomed out a bit here and there, but other than that we had one or two nice, semi-slow go's. Plus... I'm beginning to figure out my leads more and more. It's the same old story with me - when I have a lot of horse stuff to figure out, I forget that I am indeed part of the equation of the horse stuff and let my body flail, and forget what i'm doing. I need to hone in on what is going on under me, and through me. Focus, Focus, Focus.

For Next Time: Consistent slow loping of the pattern & focus more on rider + horse = ride.