I headed out for a lesson today at noon (I love riding during the day because it’s light and warm–we had daylight, but no warmth…) and holy crap was it cold. I swear my car said it was 31 when I left the house but it was 25 when I got to the barn (1.5 miles away) and with the damn wind… My trainer needed to look up the temps and it felt like 16 degrees. So it was fun. But, looking ahead to the rest of the week, today was the warm day and probably the only riding day of the week so it was today or not at all (I’ll be in CT the rest of the week anyway. Yay. Said with no enthusiasm).

Anyway, unlike last lesson, Ranger was a little less pissed off. Another benefit of riding during the day? It’s not turnout time for Ranger and therefore there’s no temper tantrum when Forrest and Elliot go out without him. Seriously, those 3 are idiots. Today, he was much happier. And since he decided last winter that he needs to be out longer than day turnout allows (day turnout is 4 hours due to field space, he and his band of idiots go out at night so they can be out all night long and Ranger won’t run away with small children).

Last lesson on the flat I was having issues with my corners so I was determined to work on that. Our corners were fine but Rangy was a bit stiff and spent the entire first 2/3s of the lesson falling in the left. My left leg is sore from working so hard.

Quarter line single, grey jump, straw bales, and in of the 6 stride outside line just to break of lots of text

We warmed up with the long ride to our cross rail and continued around to the long ride to the grey single. The mounting block was almost in the path of the grey single so I needed to be exact with my turn to that jump. But, since I chose today to steer, it was all fine.

You can sort of get an idea of the ring… 

From here, we worked on our single down the quarter line around to the outside line. I think we repeated this not because the jumps were bad (they weren’t), but because my turn wasn’t as nice as it could have been? Again, Ranger = LEANING LIKE CRAZY. But, the in jump was nice and I moved him up and all was good for the line in an easy 7.

Next we cantered over the straw bales and continued around to our other outside line in the 6, goal being to stay out after the straw bales and then steer with 2 hands to the in of the line. I felt that we were a little slow for the 6 and I didn’t actually ride the line (and didn’t notice that I wasn’t riding it until stride 5), but thankfully when I closed my leg he listened and just took the longer spot for the 6 and didn’t chip it.

Out of 7 stride outside line. Not an oxer today…

We ended by repeating those same 3 jumps and then adding the evil, Evil, EVIL (for some completely irrational reason I HATE THIS JUMP) picket fence that I swear I’m going to impale myself on after the outside line and then continued around to our other outside line in the 7. The first straw bale jump was are best fence of the night. The outside line was decent as well as the I moved him up a bit, though the out still felt a little long. The picket fence from hell we got over (Ranger has no issue with it, I just am convinced it’s going to kill me), and the other outside was nice AND our corner had no leaning! Yay!

There really are spikes sticking out of that jump. They’re just invisible to everyone but me…  Ranger says take me back to the barn and FEED ME!

I’m pretty sure we ended there. I was finally warm and walked around for a few minutes to make sure I really did have feeling in my feet before heading back in the barn to stuff Rangy with treats. Because, why wouldn’t I?

Grumpy Ranger.

When I got home, I have a lovely box waiting for me from my blogger secret santa! Thank you Emily! I have a great new blog to follow as well. And thank you Tracy for hosting! It’s my first year participating and it was a lot of fun!

Emily really out did herself! So many fun things! Awesome purple unicorn rainbow socks, a pin, an amazing calendar (including lunar stuff) that is going on my work desk that has never been this clean), treats and other goodies! Thank you so much!

Hope everyone had a great holiday! Stay warm this week if you’re somewhere cold!