I was very sad to miss last weeks lesson, but time passes fast! There were seven people in the group this week! One girl was just sneaking into the lesson as she had been working at the yard all day, but still, that meant the group is actually up to six people! This means they will not be cancelling it!
I went into the yard office feeling a big sleepy - I had returned from my holiday at around 2am, then had a 6.30am start looking after the horse, went and did yard chores twice more that day and did a load of house chores. Then I got told I had Dan! I figured I would be sleeping very well that night.
The starts of the lessons are always a bit of a nightmare. Everyone is working out their stirrups and girth, then when people start warming up their horses people are getting in each others way. Part of my plan to make this time for myself shorter is to buy my own stirrup irons and leathers, that way I can always quickly adjust them to my perfect height. (I might even tippex flatwork and jumping length markers on them). I'm going to a tack sale tonight, and I have bent iron safety stirrups in mind, so fingers crossed I find some!
Dan at the start of the lesson was his usual, lazy self. I had my determined hat on today though with a "Don't you dare, I'm not taking crap today" attitude. And for the majority of the lesson he was really well behaved! (For Dan) We had a few moments where he just walked into the walls, but I was pleasantly surprised that he wasn't too difficult to handle. He was probably having a good day, but I'll pretend it was all down to my determined riding.
We did about half an hour of trot work to begin with. At one point we all waiting in a line whilst one person would go sitting trot to the back of the ride. It was a good opportunity to check out everyone's riding. Most people seem to be at my sort of level, and there are a couple who are a little less skilled so far. Everyone had a go though!
I was really excited to see Simon bring out the jumping blocks halfway through the lesson. Then I stopped and thought "but we haven't even had a good cantering lesson yet, or been taught a jumping position". We all just walked over a pole in a jumping position first, then trotted over the world's smallest jump (I'm not even joking, it was 20cm, tops). Some of the girls (no offence to them) are really not ready for jumping. I don't really understand why Simon is teaching jumping before cantering. Maybe because they were so tiny and pretty much raised trot poles. I'll admit I struggled with the jumping rhythm a little, I think partly because it was in trot (so much easier in canter), and partly because any jumping I've done this year has been preceded by riding in a light seat, whereas Simon was teaching us from rising trot. I'm hoping we will canter next lesson, I haven't cantered in a long time now! (Around a month). I'm riding Ziggy today but I will be riding my usual bareback, and I'm still working on my bareback trot with him. I'm not quite brave enough for the canter to trot transition bareback...
I've already posted a picture of Dan previously, so here's a photo of the horse I'm looking after, Barney!
xx
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