Tag Archives: Ranger

lesson recaps

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What else to do on a Friday afternoon than recap my last couple of lessons? It’s better than bemoaning the future of the world…

Thanks to some pretty awful migraines this week, I never actually got around to recapping my lesson last week. I’ll try to do that, though most of my memories from last week are sort of lost. What I do remember was last week was cold. The start of our lovely cold snap that lasted far too many days. Thursday night wasn’t too bad, but it was definitely the start of the cold snap.

Ranger has been a little lazy lately and this lesson was really no different. I rushed to my lesson after receiving a message telling me the lesson before me cancelled and asking if  I could get there earlier (I’m the last lesson of the night). I couldn’t quite be ready at 6, but I think I was on by 6:10ish so not bad!

First surprise of the night, new course! No more evil 2 stride! After warming up with a lot of bending and counter bending, we started with the evil jump (that weird hay bale jump that I hate so much). Except, instead of being the second jump in the 2 stride, it was a single on the outside. First time through we cantered over it to the left. Strangely enough, the jump was perfect. My trainer did NOT see the spot I was holding to, but I held him to something and the whole thing just worked. Somehow.  Thanks to that, we didn’t need to do it again to the left. Cantering to the right wasn’t nearly as successful. Must have done it 3-4 times just working on turning soon enough, having enough canter… I couldn’t see a distance to save my life, which was OK, distances evidently were NOT the point of the exercise. The point was my turn to the stupid evil jump. I finally turned soon enough and we moved on. For some reason I just fear impaling myself on that picket fence of the jump… I hate that damn thing!

img_2310 From here I think we did an inside single, goal being FORWARD canter. My issue is if I don’t see a spot, I hold. I need to ride forward instead of holding to nothing. The second I starting moving forward, I could find the distances. But, insecurity led to HOLD. We did this around to the inside line which I was told I needed to do in a 6 so it was land and GO. Since we were heading to the in gate, it actually worked.  Then we something (it’s been a week) around to an inside single. So, it was probably an inside single around to another inside single. I was warned it was tight, but I figured it was similar to where the jump was previously as it looked like it was in a similar location. Yeah, not so much. First jump was fine, I turned a little late, though we had it, Ranger likes to drift, I dropped my shoulders, and there we were skirting right around the damn jump.

Ooops. Way tighter than I thought. (Piece of foreshadowing. That stupid jump would set the tone for my entire lesson the next lesson). Reminder? I need to remember to steer a LITTLE (or a lot) earlier. And use both hands. So we did it again and I say back, and I remembered to ride the entire time. And we jumped the stupid jump.

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The best!

From things got harder. See, by this point, I was tired. Ranger was tired. And lazy. And we were heading AWAY from the in gate. We jumped some jump in the ring or 2, I don’t remember, the continued to the outside line which was actually huge and did that going away from the in gate and were to do it in a 6. Except we managed a 7 and a 6.5 and some superman stunts. I mean, we got through it and Ranger got lots of thanks for saving my butt, but by this point I was dying. So, allowing me no time to breathe, I think I picked up my canter at the far end, gave him a massive kick, jumped the first jump, kicked, did the second, and it was less of a superman effort. Kept my canter, and FINALLY got a perfect 6. Holy crap. I swear that horse saved my butt.

Needless to say he earned his carrots!

And because this was the week of weather swings, we went from freezing last week, 8 degrees on Tuesday morning to the 60s on Thursday for this week’s lesson.

For the first time in a couple of months, we rode outside. Just as I was finally getting used to the tight walls! The ring was wet, it was dark, and it certainly felt strange to be outside, but we really can’t complain about lessons outside at night in January!

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Who, me?

Unlike last week, very short warm up (honestly, it was so warm, Ranger was already warmed up). I’m getting better at picking up a forward trot with him which is nice. It’s so easy to get a lazy trot with him. While cantering, the other person riding came flying off which definitely upset Ranger when the other horse left the ring, but otherwise…

We warmed up with some weird skinny, angled single at the end of the ring. On a tight turn. Trotted it to the left once before cantering in. Basically, me working on looking ahead, steering with both hands, and looking on the landing. The left actually went really well once I stopped focusing so much as to where I was turning and just started looking at the jump. The right was OK trotting in, but once I kept my canter we had a nice repeat of the tight turn last week, dodge and duck last minute. Ooops. I dropped my shoulders, steered with 1 hand and not both and Ranger laughed and me and said, “I don’t think so!” So, I trotted it again, and then remembered to ride, squared my shoulders and actually steered and what do you know? We did it! It’s amazing what riding actually does! I think I had to repeat 3 times, the 3 was actually the suckiest spot, but that point I was riding it confidently enough that he wasn’t going to even try anything. Go figure, riding works…

We moved on to cantering a 2 jumps in a figure 8. First jump, we were a little forward (hello, in gate), second jump was perfect, and I think we continued around to t he first jump again, this time half halting to actually get an appropriate pace. We did and moved on.

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He really is the cutest!

 

We ended by cantering in to our outside line towards the in gate and TIGHT turn to an inside single, the goal being control for the line and turning in time for the single. First jump was perfect, I gave a firm half half, he came right back to me, and then the second jump was right there. We turned a little early for the last jump and jumped it at a slight angle, but considering how much he drifts, evidently this was 100% OK and acceptable.

We called it a day here. I was happy and confident and didn’t want to mess with that. Show on Sunday.

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Muddy boots thanks to a great lesson outside!

Inability to keep my canter not withstanding, or another lesson recap

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The best part of working for a university is the paid week off between Christmas and New Years. And while I had so my I should be doing this week, I’ve pretty much spent the week catching up on laziness. Honestly, Monday was spend recovering from Christmas with a migraine. Tuesday was spent recovering from Monday’s migraine and going out for sushi with my mom, and Wednesday was spent seeing Mamma Mia in Philly with husband courtesy of my mother. Somehow that took out more than half of my time off. But, the nice part of the week off was a lesson during the week during daylight hours.

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lazy like a Lasagna kitty this week!

For some odd reason though, my leg wasn’t working too well. And Ranger wasn’t exactly filled with energy either thanks to a day outside in the rain. After a frustrating exercise at the trot and canter over a pole where we worked on my ability (or rather inability) to steer using my outside leg and rein we moved onto some jumping. Where I was met with a Ranger I didn’t quite know. Normally, Ranger is Ranger, but today (in the beginning) he was sort of long strided (and slow) and we canter up to our lovely inside white single jump to absolutely no spot. But, Ranger being Ranger took chip and we moved on from there. Next time, I was little more prepared and actually half halted, got him onto his hind end, and rode him to a nice spot. From there, we cantered a nice circle and cantered down over our inside grey single towards the double doors (one and only time we did this jump this direction). Slightly long spot but decent enough.

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New hairnet that doesn’t induce migraines? Only time will tell. First ride a success. Will review…

From here we moved on to our the same grey single the other direction, continuing our canter around to our outside line in the holding 8. Goals here were the approaches for each line/jump (straightness) and holding for the damn 8. While if I added leg, we could easily do the 7, for some reason we were working on the 8 last week (because last week the 8 was there) and decided to keep the 8 this week. The first time through, the first jump was perfect, the second jump was nice, and then we did a 7 1/2. The second time through, I sort of screwed up and the first jump was ok-ish, but not great, the second jump pretty much sucked, but the plan was the remember to hold at 3, 4, 5,  and 6 and as a result, jump 3 was actually perfect. I can’t remember if this was it or if we did it again.

We ended with a simple course. Trotting into the small vertical at the end of the ring (last week’s crossrail) bending line to the single fence on the rail, continuing to our single inside grey jump, outside line, around to inside white jump. Other than the fact that by this point, my legs were REALLY tired (and I didn’t start with much strength to begin with) and Ranger was NOT helping me out in the corner with my simple changes or really just cantering into the corners…, the jumps themselves were decent. We could have used some pace, but today, pace was not happening. But our spots were there!

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In other news, it appears our next show is a week from Sunday…

That was fun!, or another lesson recap

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For the first time in a while, I actually had my regular Thursday evening lesson.

But, being me, I have absolutely no media to add to this post so I needed to resort to a drawing. Sadly the drawing was not to scale, but… tough.

All I can say is I’m having so much fun on Ranger. Everything is just so easy. So easy. Almost too easy at this point? I don’t thing riding has every felt easy like this? I’ll get to this at the end of the post or if I don’t, maybe another post, because it is still as work day and I am at work which means, I should be, well, working. But I lack motivation and I don’t want to deal with people. After telling this to my mom last night her advice was to tell everyone “Begone Satan!” Um, not exactly what I expected to hear from my mother…

So, back to my lesson. I mostly warmed up on my own while the previous lesson finished up. I tried to work on a forward trot and lots of circle (mostly to stay out of the previous lesson’s way). Our canter was actually really nice and forward as well which was nice too. Everything just felt good. And I wasn’t a mess which was even better.

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My attempt to draw my course… No where to scale, but in attempt to save paper… (you can trot a nice circle around jump 1 and fit 8+ish strides between 1 and 2)

We moved on to jumping soon after and decided to focus less on height this week and more on length of course. So, trainer knocked down jumps first time in a while that she lowered jumps even though I’m pretty sure we did everything at the height they were last lesson. I’m trying not to read into these things though. Height shouldn’t matter. I jumped these jumps well Sunday so why should I care that I didn’t jump them in this lesson? Anyway, we warmed up trotting into a broken line crossrail to the outside single just focusing on a steady pace landing, halting, and staying straight. Strangely enough, we pretty  nailed it the first time which raised expectations for the rest of the lesson. At this point, the other horse left the ring which usually causes Ranger change his behavior slightly, after all, his friend is leaving. It doesn’t actually matter which friend is leaving or if he’s ever met said friend before. So, with this in mind, we repeated the exercise, anticipating an increase in speed, but honestly, he stayed pretty steady so we continued on and canted up our inside single and continued on to our outside line. The single was perfect, the outside line wasn’t mostly because turned a little bit late… Surprising, right? That said, after the first attempted when I actually remembered to look ahead, the outside line was fine and right there. I think part of my issue with turning late at times is I don’t always look ahead? Or, I look too far ahead and I’m afraid I’ll turn too early and cut my corners so I turn too late. I have no idea.

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Borrowed media from last week to see jumps 8 (green) 9 (hay bales)  3/7(grey), 6 (white), 4 (pink/black outside line), 1 (crossrail)

Since 5 jumps wasn’t enough, after a few times we continued after the outside line and came up the other inside single. This was the single we started with last week so no big deal. I think we did this once. Then, it was continue back down the other inside single the other direction (jump 7) and up our 2 stride for our 9 jump course. I can’t remember the last time I did a 9 jump course. 8 years ago? Most of my hunter courses were 8 jumps or at times 7, but rarely ever 9. So, this was good for my brain. Even better, I didn’t get lost! Unfortunately, we only did the course once as it was pretty perfect. We might have drifted slightly in one line, but not enough to warrant redoing anything or I’d have tried to get a video. Seriously though, this was some of the best riding I feel like I’ve done in a while.

 

Which brings me back to my first point. Everything feels easy. Too easy. Not boring, but easy. Trainer asked me while I was untacking if had thought about buying a jumper since we all know Batty isn’t that and showed me a video of a cool big quiet looking gelding. I’m just completely not in the position to buy a horse. I mean, I have 3. And it’s fine, but man, do I want a horse. It was sort of that moment that showed me how much I want something like that. Big, quiet, easy to the jumps. But, I don’t have the funds. Forget month to month lack of funds (because that’s so not there right now either), I don’t have purchase price either, not that I know what that would be.

Which brings me to Subi. At some point, I probably do need to have a serious conversation with her about him and see if restarting him is an actual option. I’m probably way stronger of a rider to do it myself now than I was a year (or even 2 or 3) ago, but, at the same time, I do need the assistance of a trainer or facility where he can be ridden every day in the beginning. I can’t do that at home. So, if my current trainer can do that at a price I can make work, good. If not, I can send him out to someone else (I really liked the guy who taught Batty to load and I’ve seen him ride–really good all around horseman who I’d trust though I’d have to send Subi a good 6 – 8 miles from my house rather than 1.1 miles). So, I don’t know. If trainer will take him on, I might still take him to other trainer for some trailer loading lessons. Mostly to teach him to self load. Because, if I do start taking him places, I need him to self load. That’s one thing he doesn’t do.

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My office picture wall

So the next question, am I crazy to think about bringing Subi by soon to be 20 year old gelding back into work? He’s had a year off and about 2 year of minimal work before that, but he’s generally had little to no soundness issues. Most of the time off has been because of me. I lost my confidence and with him, not having a really place to ride has really been a struggle. If I can make it work regularly hauling out for lessons and hacks, and only occasionally needing to ride at home, he could probably stay in a routine…  20 isn’t that old, right? He can still run around and buck like a 5 year old (this is where I see him aging. I no longer say 2 year old). He’s lost a lot of top line/muscle, but even in work he’s never had a great topline…

Ranger goes to a show

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For the first time in about 7 or 8 years, I went to my first show this weekend (unless of course you count Batts’ trip to Ludwig’s Corner Horse Show, which counts, but doesn’t since we went to have fun and just sort of hack sans trainer and try not make fools of ourselves). Anyway, it was a small schooling show series. Anyway, Ranger and I were planning to show in Pleasure Horse and after our bad lesson 2 week ago, that seemed like a good plan (last week’s lesson was much improved–Ranger has initially moved from night turnout to day turnout (8 hours to 4 hours) but after taking off with little kids, and basically continuing doing what he was doing with me (ducking out of jumps, ignoring hand/leg, and otherwise just being unhappy), he was returned to night turnout. He’s happy Ranger again. Life for him is good.). Jumps in pleasure were going to be 2’6″ which would be fine. Less than we jump in lessons.  Of course, they ended up combining pleasure pony and horse so we ended up jumping 18″. I can tell how far I come when I think is how tiny the jump are. Of course, larger jump would have probably made things easier as we got fast since it was easy to basically rush the lines coming home (and I sort of forgot to ride) and all that… If he actually had to put effort into jumping something, we might have had a prettier course. Oh well. In the end, I had 2 goals. Not to die and to remember my course. I did both so success!

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Leave it to my husband to take awkward pictures while schooling…

We ended up with a 3rd over fences and 2 seconds in the hack and reserve champion overall. Considering we rode against some really cute kids on really cute ponies, I’d say that was a huge success! Of course, Ranger is adorable too.

Anyway, not a bad reintroduction to showing! We’ll see where we go from here. I’m not interested in anything major (rated, multi-day), nor am I interested in show every weekend, but some local shows, sure, why not?

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Trail rides and Paper Chases

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Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Instead of shopping (or eating too much) Thanksgiving this year was spent enjoying our new found freedom thanks to having a horse that actually loads on a trailer. It’s amazing all the fun things we can do!

Technically I had to work Monday through Wednesday but that didn’t stop me from taking some time off for more fun things like riding lessons and trail rides. Tuesday was still super windy around here so I had my lesson indoors and it just sort of..sucked. It tuned out it was only Ranger’s second time in the indoor (since the first time I’d ridden him in there), and while there wasn’t anything inherently wrong with the lesson, I just kept sucking and he took full advantage. Basically we were doing an inside line and ducking out of the second jump. First time my fault, second time over and perfect. Third time, fine, 4th time, haha look at me caught you completely off guard! Then it was just a fight and I lost my confidence. We ended up just trotting a few times and Ranger got the “oh shit” look but the whole thing… especially considering we’re supposedly showing next weekend… yeah. Spatially I’m bad with indoors anyway. We’ll see how this week goes… I originally agreed to a barn schooling show but now it appears it’s a schooling show elsewhere an hour away…

So Wednesday I took a half day to take a trail ride with my friend Sandra who was visiting for Thanksgiving. So Batty and I headed to Marsh Creek for the afternoon. After 3 days of wind, it was finally a nice day. Sunny and warm(ish). We got to borrow Batts’s buddy Ben and had a great time and managed not to get lost while taking a trail I’ve only been on once before! Success! Anyway, the footing was great and we managed a decent amount of trotting and cantering too. Good prep for Friday’s paperchase!

Of course by Wednesday night I had some debilitating head cold (that I’m still dealing with now) so Friday morning I was still flip flopping on attending said paperchase but I ended up going. It was hosted by Fair Hill Stables and when I arrived around 9:30, my normally sane horse was a nervous nelly. Horses were screaming and he was just feeding off their energy. I eventually got tacked up and managed to get on and then asked for directions to registration. A nice pair asked if I had a team (the organizer was going to add me to one of the groups renting her horses), and invited he to join them. So Batty and I made our way down to the stable amid chaos and barking dogs, somehow registered while spinning, calmed down when a group of horses left, got reworked up, and then calmed down again once our team headed out. Once we were out on the trail, he was his normal happy self. Go figure?

5 minutes into the ride we suffered equipment failure when the wire in his one hoof boot snapped and Batts freaked out. Well, he was pissed that he went from cushy boot to harsh gravel… thankfully the girl I was with jumped off her pony (yay for vaulters) grabbed his half boot), jumped back on, and  the other lady stuck it in her saddle bag. We were approaching grass so I just walked to that point and luckily Batts was ok without a boot. But I wasn’t exactly happy. But grass brought us to out first canter stretch which left me with a very happy horse so his hoof boot was quickly forgotten.

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The first half to two thirds of the ride went really well. Batty’s not great with bridges but he was happy to follow over them and through tunnels. He doesn’t actually care where he is in line so while we mostly stayed in the back he did get his chance to lead at times. He was also the brave horse through water (usually the leader) so all my fights at Marsh Creek have finally paid off! The trail was really well marked as well which was great. That said, it was crazy long. We did a massive amount of trotting and cantering in the beginning but ended up walking the lasted 1/3 as one of the horses we were with came up lame (stone bruise). We were out probably 3+ hours. They said it was 10 miles but it had to have been longer… it felt longer. By the end the horses were just over it. We did have one bridge where Batts just wouldn’t cross. Leader didn’t help. I ended up getting off and forcing him across. He eventually walked over a few times willingly and I got back on and we moved on, but something a boy that one stupid bridge…

Overall it was a fabulous event, just wish it was a tiny bit shorter. The footing was great, the trail was super well marked, but it was just crazy long. Nonetheless everyone had a lot of fun. Met a good pair who loved Batty too and we plan to do more chases together in the spring. Professional pictures

Must. Eat. All. The. Hay.

After my long ride Friday, the last thing I expected to hear was “trail ride” on Saturday but sure enough… so after lessons and armed with a killer cold, I took a nice couple out. Nothing like riding when you are so frickin’ sore. Saturday was back to being colder and miserabler. And windy. Not bad wind, but enough. But I did get to ride the Heidi-Mare, the only mare I actually enjoy riding right now. Of course, thanks to the wind and downed branches, we were looking and spooking at things left and right so it wasn’t exactly a relaxing or enjoyable ride, but at least she’s cute?

Catching up or not

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I haven’t felt much like blogging lately. Not entirely sure why. I haven’t had all that much to talk about but I haven’t had nothing. Who knows. The whole fate of the world has me done combined with work and migraines I guess? I don’t know…

Still not much up for blogging but I did have a nice lesson tonight. And I managed to get videos so that’s something! The videos were at the end of the lesson and sort of an afterthought but they’re something, right? In the first video we were supposed to  get a 7 in the last line… oh well. The second video was a redo of that last line. Ranger was pretty ready to be done by that point. But he’s completely perfect…

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weekend roundup

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Nothing too exciting to report. Pretty uneventful week filled with lots of migraines and a fun work trip to Dover, DE (note, I don’t like Dover at all). Fun, right?

In non-migraine news, it was ridiculously warm all week with temps near 80 which is not normal for the mid Atlantic in October. So, of course, everyone was miserable with their fuzzy coats. I’m still debating weather to clip Batts and Jiminy, but if I’m going to I should probably get to it sooner rather than later. I waited until Thanksgiving last year for Batts which was way too late. Hopefully I get to it soon. My farrier was out on Monday and encouraged me to clip the boys. I certainly won’t do a full body clip (I was thinking about it for Batty, but i’m too lazy and cheap to buy another new blanket with hood) but some sort of trace clip should be fine. Though a hood was tempting to help grow back his missing mane. But, money. But, I have enough well fitting high neck blankets for Batty that I’m not going to bother with anything new. So trace/chaser clip will need to do.

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Diet may be needed soon…

As for Jiminy, he hates being cold, but he’s so hot right now with his coat that I don’t really have a choice. Plus, he loves his blankets so… Seriously mini. You were supposed to be the easy one!

As for Subi, he needs all the coat he can grow. And blankets. I did order him a new discontinued Rambo for super cheap on Wednesday while stuck in Dover so hopefully I can retire his 10 year old Rider blanket to an emergency spare. It’s still waterproof and holding up, but after 10 years, it’s seen better days. I’d rather not use it as a spare anymore and just hold onto it for emergencies.

I cancelled my lesson on Thursday (migraine) and rode Sunday on the Ranger horse. We sort of picked up where we left off with the gate around to the triple (after flatwork and sitting trot which I sucked at this week). Thankfully the triple started out as well as we ended with and my brain didn’t get overly involved which is always a good thing. After that, however, we introduced the evil 2 stride. My issue with this was that I had to canter in the first time (fine, no big deal) and no nothing (much bigger deal). Thankfully, unlike a normal person who cuts corners, I usually go to wide which helped me with the 2 stride where I needed to be wide to come in straight. It was actually fine. Of course, instead of just doing the 2 stride, we needed to continue to the triple which sucked the first time since I failed to add enough leg and the first jump was ugly. The next few times were much better. We may have done another line in here but I don’t really remember. Overall, it was a short, but productive lesson. Sometimes I feel lessons might not be the full length, which would bother me, bit I didn’t feel I were getting so much out of the lesson? If that makes sense? We’ve also gone way over when I’ve sucked so… Anyway, I just love this perfect horse who makes me look like I know what I’m doing. I’m sure i don’t but it’s nice to feel that way sometimes!

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Other than my lesson, the Batthorse worked hard all weekend. On Saturday he came down to Marsh Creek for lessons and a trail ride. One of my adults hopped on him for a lesson and he was a good boy though completely took advantage of her at times. His opinion? Good boy= Whoa. Yeah. But, he trotted around like a champ, trotted his poles (though when she had super long reins the first time he did canter over them and was VERY proud of himself), cantered around like a perfect pony, and even popped over a crossrail a few times (happily walking over it several times first). He hasn’t been a lesson horse for years, but he didn’t seem to mind the light lesson work.

After the lessons he joined me on a trail ride in 40 mile/hr winds. Not that Batty cares about no wind. He had a bigger issue when one of the horses tried to take the lead from him… Anyway, despite the wind and cold, I think he was happy to be out in the park. I tried to do 2 point on the trail ride which was a little interested, but managed about 15 minutes….

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Sunday after our lesson I pulled Batts back out of the paddock for another ride to time our 2 point. He was none too impressed. I guess 2 days of work in a row violates our contract… Anyway, we just walked around the woods while I timed 2 point and listened to a podcast. Seriously 2 point is easy on Batty thanks to his downhill nature. Grabbing made/touching his neck pitches you forward so it’s actually easier NOT to hold on. Batty was happier to learn he didn’t need to work so he happy to walk forever. Anyway, we hit the 25 minute mark (finally!) and I’m surprisingly not sore today. I feel a lot stronger doing 2 point after lessons so jumping must be getting me stronger.

Anyway, no lesson next week. I work Thursday night (normal lesson time) and trainer is a show all weekend. So, instead, it’ll be a weekend of trail rides. Saturday at Marsh Creek (assuming a bring Batty again) and Sunday at Fair Hill. I’m hoping that the ‘on location’ riding will help with contract violations…

Rounding up ponies, or something like that

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Updates are hard without media…

So some of these post are useless without pictures, but I’ll do the best I can…

Not too much to report on on the horse front. The boys continue to do well though mostly just spend there time stuffing their faces with hay and grumbling about a lack of food… The feed store was out of alfalfa cubes a few weeks ago and so we got timothy/alfalfa cubes instead. Subi has always been hit or miss with cubes, but I like the benefits of alfalfa. It seems timothy/alfalfa cubes are the way to go and are a BIG hit with him. He’s actually enthusiastic about evening cubes now. We’ll see how long he keeps this up, but… I’d love to actually up with cubes in the winter, but that might be pushing my luck. Still, in the mean time, it’s nice he’s so enthusiastic about food. On top of that, he’s back to eating flax too. All of this means he’ll probably stop eating in January just to drive me insane..

Sunday I had a nice ride on Batty. By nice, I mean I tortured myself with 2 point for longer than intended. I set a timer that failed to go off so instead instead of staying up for my targeted 5 1/2 minutes, I ended up in 2 point for an awful 12:36.64. At the walk. How I did not fall asleep of boredom, I do not know. How my legs did not fall off, I do not know. How, 2 days later, I managed to hobble around, I do not know. But, listening to a podcast while in 2 point did make things more tolerable. As did a very happy and pleasant horse. He’s not normally this happy or pleasant, but I think the fact that I wasn’t asking him to actually work much helped a lot… After the torture of 2 pointed ended, we did some trot sets up and down the hill for a while and then I let him gallop up hill a few times before calling it a day.  Then I conveniently decided to fill up a water trough, forgot about the hose until we came out to feed dinner, and noticed I flooded the paddock… Ooops. Only 2.5 hours of extra water… At least the round bale was sitting on a pallet?

Prior to my 2 point fiasco, I had a lesson earlier in the day on Ranger, where I more or less learned that I’ve been 2 pointing wrong most of my life. Well, not wrong so much as less correct. We don’t necessarily work on 2 point specifically in lessons, but I was warming before we started and my trainer started commented on position and all that. Turns out my heels are down to far to the point of being ineffective. So, the goal becomes concentrating less on heels and more of distribution of pressure between the big toe and the little toe (I already and pressing into my heel enough) to ensure that I’m keeping enough contact with my lower leg. Huge difference just bringing the little toe into the equation (and I’m blaming the little toe for all the pain felt as a result of the 2 point with Batt–but I certainly felt SO MUCH MORE stable making that minor change).

Anyway, back to my lesson. I love that little horse so damn much. He’s so perfect for me right now. He’s so broke on the flat that everything is just easy, but all my faults just are just magnified (my ineffective outside arm seems to move forward while circling for some reason…) so I really know what I need to work on. He’s super comfortable and steady too. What he is, I have no idea, but he’s truly amazing for me.

We warmed up trotting into a simple line focusing on where I’m looking (UP toward the second jump and not at the base of the first…). First time through I didn’t have enough energy and sort of held and we trotted into an un-energetic 7. Added leg to trot into a 6 the next time that actually looked better. Then I screwed up cantered in… I don’t know why I couldn’t pick up my damn lead. Then when I did, I needed to circle to get my rhythm, and unlike normal people who cut corner, I am the opposite and turn too late. So, we worked on that until it was nice.  Then the conversation turned to “you’re going to think I’m crazy” and of course anything that starts with those words… So, left lead canter to a single towards the in gate) around to the outside triple (4 stride to 4 stride). Me: stops breathing. Before we start, we break it down a bit and remember that this horse will stop and NOTHING and all I need to do is steer as he does duck in a bit so in between the triple I need to pull hands to rail (triple was against rail which actually made it easy) and LOOK UP TO LAST FENCE OF TRIPLE until I’m approaching that fence and then look out of ring.

So, our first attempt was interesting. Coming to the single, Ranger decided OMG JUMPING TO IN GATE and decided to actually speed up and brain said OMG I DIE but as we approached in gate, Ranger said, time to stop and my leg barely said keep going, so, going to the triple it was wiggly and slow and ugly, but we made it over all 4 jumps. Trainer asked my opinion. Me: It was really ugly. Trainer: Did you get over jumps? Me: yes. Trainer: Are prizes being given out today? Me: But… Trainer: Goal was to get through it. Did you stop, crash, die, etc.? Hit him in the mouth? No. So, attempt 2 was pretty much perfect. We still rushed the first jump a bit (a little bit of OMG JUMPING TOWARDS IN GATE) but not (OMG DIE from me) and I was more prepared that he was going to pull me towards the quarter line while cantering to the first fence so I was able to use more leg and hand to have a better spot. And then landing I was prepared to just look up and ahead and then start adding leg as we approached the in gate so we didn’t have a debate about stopping which led up to a perfect spot at the the first jump of the triple. A little leg and steering in the air allowed him to just carry me over the rest of the triple and with that I survived. So, when I was told to do it again and add in the 6 line we started with, I actually said OK.

Was out 6 jump course perfect? No, I think the triple was prettier the second time, but our first jump was the best the last time (FINALLY no more OMG JUMPING TO IN GATE!!! from Ranger) and I finally had a nice turn to my 6 stride. So, for not having done a course in at least 7 years,  I was pretty happy. The jumps are small right now which is fine. I need small though I don’t think the height really matters with Ranger. He’s just amazing and exactly what I need. If he were a little smaller, I might be able to fit him in my backseat and take him home with me… img_1606

I’ve ridden so many greenies over the years that I’ve learned to ride defensively or super well schooled horses with soundness issues that I’ve been very limited in what I can do, or modified HOW I ride to best support the horse. Or lesson horses that we pretty much limited to cross rails or had little to no education or soundness issues or both. Or “Wenglish” horses that were just interesting… I’ve had little chances to just ride a really well trained schoolmaster. For where I am right now, I need to bring my education back up. Subi is the exception as he was pretty well trained, but, my trainer at the time never got on him. Granted, I didn’t do training board, but I’ve learned even if I had, said trainer wouldn’t have actually ridden my horse, just charged me for service not rendered (not always the case but was the case during the period of time when I was a boarder). But that’s a whole other rant that I’m not getting into.