I have NOT recapped my lessons in the last few weeks. Not because they haven’t been good lessons (they have), but mostly because we’ve been stuck inside, have been working on rollbacks and I have had absolutely NO MEDIA and and work has been insane. Rollbacks are really hard to write about when you don’t have so much as a picture of the course. And then I sort of got tied up with work (or taxes) and never managed to even try and recap. Oops.

I’m not much better this week, but at least I rode outside?

I was in DC/Bethesda for the first half of the week for a workshop at the NIH on research data management. I only bring that up to clue everyone into my mental and physical state going into my lesson last night. My legs were burning (SO. MUCH. WALKING. NIH campus is huge) within 2 minutes thanks to comfortable (yet probably not ideal) shoes from earlier in the week and I was exhausted and not really able to take in direction? As long as I didn’t need to think, all was good. If I needed to think? haha!

My train… Boarding without a platform… Platform 9 3/4 I guess?

We started off with a lovely FORWARD trot. Ranger was happy to be outside (though a little grumpy his OMG BEST FRIENDS were outside in the field next to the ring eating his hay) and moving nicely to the left. My left leg was not dead. We hopped over the poles that were in our one outside line working on straightness (so, there was a pole then a little shoot then another pole |    =    |   (the last pole had flowers with it). This direction was easy, though we did that a few times. Then we changed direction, and tried it to the right twice, adding in some circles and halts. To the right, OMG right drift and right leg = DEAD. And, after doing that twice, we picked up the canter and it became EVEN HARDER with the damn drift. But, the goal was canter the thing in 8 strides (easy), then canter it in 9 strides, really collecting (not hard, but the god damn drift), then 8 strides (easy), then 7 strides (easy) then 8 strides (OMG I’m dying)  then walk. The hardest part was that we essentially cantered 5 times around the ring and my legs were protesting so much. Well, my right ankle was mostly dying. See, I was paying with the swelling in my feet from the stupid trip…. Then we moved to the other direction and Ranger just naturally moved FORWARD. And the 8 was too fast and yeah we struggled. So, it took a couple times to get a nice 8 because I was already tired. But, essentially we did an 8 and then circled until we had the canter for the 9, then got him too forward for the 7 (oops, I was aiming for the 6…) then tried again and got the 7 then walked and I collapsed and took a break.

After a walk break which wasn’t as long as I’d like, Ranger and I were assigned our next task: cantering into our inside green oxer (an 8 canter), shortening our canter to our log (9 canter) which was a super tight turn as it was basically a tight half circle to the log out of the inside line and then immediately to the other outside line in the 4 (7 canter).  We actually made it through the first time, but had a little too much canter for the single. But, when in double, I’ve learned to move up rather than be passive and the jump was nice. But, Ranger was leaning on the landing making jump 2 hard. Take 2 wasn’t as nice as we landed wrong from the single (which was too slow) and turned late and it was ugly-ish. I mean, it wasn’t bad, but not great? Take 3 was better, but the simple change still was taking throwing me… Finally, take for was as perfect as I could make it and I think we thankfully didn’t do a take 5.

You can sort of see the log?

From here we cantered right lead over our other inside single towards Ranger’s OMG BEST FRIENDS (idiot) and then came around to our inside line. My brain was seriously fried at this point so I just decided to count 1-2-1-2 to hold a steady pace and not mess with him. Our pace felt fine though I did here my trainer tell me I didn’t need to gallop… Oops. Our first jump was gorgeous and then I forgot to stay out for the line (it’s a super hard turn and if you don’t stay out, the line DOES NOT WORK AT ALL) but then Ranger drifted because I had no right leg and it all worked out and the in was perfect and then we drifted slightly and the out oxer was perfect, even though, gallop. But, because we can’t end on almost perfect (ie: gallop), we did it again.

So brown single (with the blue and white standards) around to white boxes inside line

So last time through. Goal: NO drift and NO GALLOP. I basically approached the single with the same 1-2-1-2-1-2 approach and thankfully we had an even more perfect jump (no OMG BEST FRIENDS this time) and then landed and I continued to 1-2-1-2-1-2 myself to the next jump and we jumped STRAIGHT through the entire thing. Ranger, knowing he was complete PERFECTION got a hug and then started yanking at the reins… Brat. Thankfully we ended or I would have said no. Seriously, it was the nicest jumps I have done in the longest time. Don’t make me top that.

Reunited with BEST FRIENDS Elliot (bay) and Mikey (grey)