Tempting fate and paying the price!

Today I was thinking about how I haven't fallen off in ages, and I'm probably due for one soon. I arrived early and reluctantly handed over the cash for next months lessons. I am so skint. Why do I always do this every payday? I'll get paid, get all excited and spend it all, then spend the rest of the month boohooing over my lack of funds. At least I have the sense to put my savings away at the start of the month, and refuse to touch them. 
Anyway, I was given Bally and was excited as there were only four of us in the group today, meaning a potential of lots of jumping. Unfortunately after a few laps around the school we all decided Bally was lame and quickly had to transfer to another horse. I got Rupert and was ok with this, even though I'd never jumped him before. Simon said we were going to do courses for the first time today, which was pretty exciting! 
We had a usual warm up of trotting on both reins and having a couple of canters, then got straight into the jumping. We started with one jump then built it up to five, gradually increasing the height as we did so. I've drawn a picture which is at the bottom of this post so you can see our course! 
Kate was riding Elliot, who was on a mission! She jumped our first jump in a canter, and Elliot got so excited he started bucking after it, and the poor girl went flying into the wall! She said she hurt her back and arm but she was very brave and got back on, and carried on with the course. 
Rupert was going...ok. He kept swapping from lazy trotting to a raring canter, so it was quite hard to keep up with. He ran out of three jumps with me, completely my fault as my reins were a bit slack. Then we got to our last go at the course. First jump we got over in a nice, active trot. We cantered to the second jump, trotted for the change of rein and cantered over jumps 3 and 4. We then turned the corner far too sharp for jump number 5, but I figured we were pretty straight a few strides away so kicked Rupert on. We came to the jump, my body was ready and started to fold, and Rupert slammed the brakes on! I went straight over his head and landed on the jump! Luckily I was wearing my body protector (I knew I made that New Year's Resolution for a good reason!), so it took the hit and my back was fine. Simon came over, checked I was ok and tried to give me a leg up to get back on. But the adrenaline was still coursing through my body like a hundred Mexican Jumping Beans, and my brain and body completely disconnected! It was so funny, every time Simon said "1, 2, 3!" my legs said "NOOOO!" I did eventually get back on to do the course a couple more times. As I was coming up to one jump Simon said "Try not to fold so early, move when you're in the air", but I got ridiculously left behind over the jump! I went back to my normal style and just prayed Rupert wouldn't refuse again... 
Luckily he played nice and we managed to do the course very well the last 2 tries! 

I also had a lesson on Sunday with a friend of mine, Jasmine. We rode at Oaklands Riding School in Exeter and it was awesome! I rode a beautiful horse called Cassie and she rode a cob called Mr Chips. We started off in a little indoor school but once the instructor realised we had ridden before and didn't lie about our abilities (it was the first time we'd ridden there) we got to go outside for some jumping. We started off with a small cross pole that she gradually put up over the lesson. I think by the end of it the centre of the cross was roughly 2 foot! We had loads of fun despite the freezing cold weather! 

xx