Thanks to a wide range of circumstances, my Thursday lesson was pushed back to Saturday this week.

It was really pretty earlier in the week…

It was all fine. Thursday would have meant that I got to ride with snow falling off the roof of the indoor which is always fun. Plus my neck/back was killing me for some odd reason… Who knows. I’m a walking disaster. Regardless, I find it really odd to ride during the day these days. Anyway, it all meant that Michele! came out and served at videographer once she navigated around Amish buggies… That’s the problem with Saturdays…

My lesson started with a pokey, blockheaded Ranger. Evidently he’s been a little difficult over the last week. So, during our initial w/t flat work, we did a lot of trot/halt/back transitions until I finally got him off of his front end and on to his butt. We also did a lot of tiny circles at the trot and worked on not falling in. Finally we got some square halts where it didn’t feel like Ranger was going to try and drag me onto the ground (it was that kind of a day to start out… He’s got a BIG HEAD). Somewhere around this point, Michele showed up.

At the canter, the focus was mostly forward down the long sides and making Ranger collect use his butt in the corners. Then, to start off to the right, we circled and I failed to realize that with the new course, the jumps were on the long side and proceeded to almost crash into a fence. BUT, we managed not to and didn’t lose our canter. It was just not pretty. Take 2 was nicer. Then on the other side of the ring, tiny circles at the canter were the goal. I should have know this was a clue for things to come. Left lead was uneventful… Just a circle or two…

Our warm up exercise was…evil. It was a figure eight exercise over a cross rail. Thankfully I do NOT have a video of it. Basically, we cantered left lead over this cross rail, then landed turned right and cantered right lead (TIGHT TURN) over the cross rail, landed, cantered left lead again over it. I think we did it 3 times? I mean, it went fine, I just didn’t like the exercise.

From here, we did the same cross rail (cantering in left lead), but instead of  turning back to the cross rail, we instead went to the outside line against the rail). First time through I kind of lacked the power I needed and we did an ugly 7. The second jump was the EVIL death jump that has the invisible spikes… YES they are there and they pop out at you when you go over it thank you very much. But, the second time through, I actually rode the damn thing and we got the 6. My issue the first time was I was still in the holding mindset from the tight turn to get back to the cross rail (we had to turn at the first jump of the line) rather than a going mode to make the line.

Next we worked on our inside single which wasn’t an issue at all. This was the only place that I could feel Ranger occasionally want to get strong but a tiny lift was all he needed. From the single we continued to the cross rail bending to the second jump in the outside line (AKA the death jump). It was fine. No issue at all. We only put the 3 together once?

Finally we ended with our course that took me a few times to get right. We started we the outside single which first time we proceeded to take a rail down. Next we came around to the inside line in a 6. I got the simple change late though the turn, while hard (it’s one of those you have to wait for it turns, but I turn late so those work for me), wasn’t an issue. That said, I let Ranger pull me a bit and we sort of sucked in the line and got in tight to the out of the line…

Take 2 was better spots, but Ranger was severely distracted. His BFF Elliot walked in and instead of picking up his feet, he was focused on Elliot. So we took out a bunch of rails. Because, idiot.

Take 3 was FINALLY the course we wanted. We added on to it by continuing to our outside line and then continuing to our inside single.

Anyway, we called it a day from there. The bad news was Ranger had to do double duty and will have to do double duty on Thursdays from now on. Sucks for him. AND I’ll lose my Thursday zen tack up time. But, hopefully come summer the kid riding him before me will find another time to ride and I can find my zen time again.