I grew up going to NCSU (go pack!) games with my Dad. Every year he had season tickets to football and basketball, and I would join him at least a few times per season. We both liked basketball the best, and the reason my Dad prefers basketball to football is that he says that basketball is a momentum sport. The team’s performance swings a lot in highs and lows, and some good momentum can really turn the game around. I…
After kind of a crappy week all around, my luck started changing on Thursday and I had an excellent weekend both hanging out with my mom and spending some time with Simon pants. On Thursday, I ran out to the barn at lunch to check my gimpy creature. He looked nearly 100%, so we decided to turn out. Saturday when I had more time I inspected the area on his heel that had been hot and puffy. It was noticeably…
This past weekend, two riders from my barn rode in the Bernie Traurig Clinic. I tagged along with my trainer and fellow barn-mates to audit, and had a great Saturday watching the 2’6″-2’9″ group, the 3′-3’3″ group, and the 3’6″+ group. Bernie is a great clinician, and the creator of Equestriancoach.com. The 2’6″-2’9″ group spent a lot of time on some flat exercises that a few riders were having trouble with, so for the purposes of this write-up I’m going…
It should be no secret to y’all that my horse and I have some work to do on the flat. How he is easier to jump than he is to hack is a mystery to me for sure! After the last show when I didn’t even try to do the under saddle classes, I knew it was time to get down to business on improving this situation. When my friend was visiting, she flatted Simon and made him look like…
Simon got his first adjustment from the Chiropractor yesterday. It’s something we’ve been meaning to do for a while, but the schedule was never lining up. When my trainer texted me yesterday and said the chiro would be out and she thought it would be good for Simon to get done, I agreed with her… even if I will be eating peanut butter and jelly for a bit. Gotta love the timing of paying things for the pony! I wasn’t…
There are good lessons because your horse is fantastic, and then there are bad lessons because your horse is not fantastic. I didn’t have either of those lessons last night. I had the lesson where your horse is mostly game for what we’re trying to do, but the rider is not making his job easy. By not making it easy, I really mean thumping on his back while trying to step up to bigger jumps. Here’s a dramatic visual to…
This is the week of lessons ramping up to the horse show. Usually I do one group lesson and one training ride for Simon per week, but on a horse show week I’ll swap a training ride for a lesson. That combined with my usual weekend lesson means a group jumping lesson every other day until we go to the show to school on Friday. That much instruction means we have to improve… right? Right?!? Heading to Sunday’s lesson I…
Even though you can’t be a great rider without lots of practice and being in decent shape, I still claim that over 50% of the sport is mental. That being said, I had a good ‘reset’ lesson on Tuesday night to address some of the communication issues with my horse. I won’t bore you with the tiny details of the lesson, because it wasn’t that exciting, but I will share some of my take aways. I do group lessons weekly,…