October is supposed to be the best time to live in central Texas. You can expect mid 70’s to low 80’s during the day, and the nights feel like they just might be cold enough for a sweater. Everyone knows this, including Simon who is Texan born and bred. So can someone explain to me why we’re having temperatures in the mid 90’s? Saturday I went out to the barn in early afternoon to hack the pony. Right from the get…
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…
For the first time since I became a horse owner sixteen years ago, I find myself falling into the weekend warrior category. At first I thought I’d be able to maintain my four day a week riding schedule through this transition period, but I’ve decided that just isn’t realistic. I have a lot of visitors/help in town, and I both want to see these people and chip away at my to do list during the week. When I did ride Tuesday…
Last week before my jaunt to NC and the Memorial Day Texas flood, I was able to ride my horse for two days. It was amazing. One of those days happened to be a jumping lesson, and in a show of great maturity I took a last minute half day from work and headed to the barn for an earlier lesson. We hadn’t jumped in well over a week and more rain was in the forecast, so my trainer wasted…
Okay, so maybe that’s still a work in progress. My lesson on Tuesday went quite well overall. I started my course with a decent forward pace and none of the jumps (2’3″ – 2’6″) looked intimidating to me at all. We cantered up to a vertical and I didn’t see a spot, so naturally I pulled for the add and my horse was like “Trot?” and it was kinda fugly. Well, that wasn’t amazing but we recovered fine and no harm…
My ego with riding continues to be bruised, but I’m not a quitter. I’m officially doing the schooling show next weekend instead of the originally planned two day show this weekend. Bonus points for saving a lot of money? That’s how I’m pitching it to myself. I also got bumped from the jumper lesson (hopefully temporarily) this weekend, since the more experienced girls needed to prep over bigger fences for the show this weekend. I mean even if I’ve been riding…
If I let myself, I could get really depressed about my riding right now. We are no where near the level we were last fall. The shows I had planned on doing this spring and summer (even the one next week) are seeming out of grasp right now. I’m totally the remedial rider in the lesson group, and there are lots of instances where I’d gasp watching me ride. My ego is shriveling up and dying, but my self esteem…
I’ve had several lessons and good rides since ‘the incident‘, but even so nothing has felt quite normal. Either I’ve been worried or Simon has seem worried (most likely because I am). I’ve been riding defensively and either going too fast, too slow, leaning or getting left behind. Nothing tragic has happened, but nothing has really felt good either. The derby ended up getting entirely cancelled due to rain, which I have mixed feelings about. However after my lesson on…