This weekend was about the holy trinity – ponies, friends and alcohol. Sometimes these combine in amazing ways, and sometimes they leave you showing up for your Saturday morning lesson feeling less than stellar.

Less than stellar for your first lesson in over a month.

For your first lesson in over a month where your trainer busts out some awesome exercises, that are simultaneously super fun and ridiculously hard. I think I said at one point, “This lesson points out all our worst flaws at once.” Plus, Simon was super psyched about life and more importantly – about jumping again.

Personally, I was proud at myself for getting out of bed and making it to the barn. It’s not shocking to me that the photos were less than stellar, but there were some good moments.

There were moments when I thought, “Will I ever learn not to learn and hunch forward?”

There were moments when Simon said, “FUCK YEAH WE’RE JUMPING CROSSRAILS!”

If you’re curious how difficult trot jumps are on Simon when he’s had close to a month off from jumping, just read the expression on my face.

That is me saying, “I regret that last cocktail.”

Trot jumps aren’t as hard as canter – trot transitions though, just ask Simon pants.

Horseback riding. It’s a beautiful thing right?

The crowning achievement of our lesson was cantering through the trot poles. Because I was feeling tired & frumpy, I stopped riding him about a stride out of the poles. Instead of keeping a steady contact, sitting up and talking to him… I just flopped and said “Do what you will.” Well, he cantered… but he cantered in a perfectly calculated way.

After the “canter” poles, he pranced around as if to say ,”Wow that was a really hard exercise but I sure did it well!”

It was also hot and humid as all get out. Summer is not over in Texas. We ended our lesson with a pretty ugly course, but one that had little over excitable nerd horse listening to me well. As for me, I was pretty much ready to fall off my horse and die in a corner. Shockingly enough, that didn’t happen and I survived to go cross country schooling the next morning… but that’s another blog post.

You may also like:

Forward (and Straight) Fuel the Fire Not a Linear Process Bridleless Progress An Awesome Lesson