After my riding lesson yesterday,t I counted how many riding lessons I’ve had since I started in earnest last April. Thirty-two on about twelve different horses. On my Thursday lessons I’ve been riding Rainy more often. A couple months ago I had a bit of a scare on him where he dove to the right over a jump. I nearly fell off as he careened around the arena with me unbalanced and without stirrups. That instructor wanted me to stick with good old reliable but arthritic Louie. I enjoy riding Louie but feel bad about how many lessons he’s in. Often two a day, more on Saturdays and Sundays. Everyone gets a day off on Monday.
Anyway, even though I’m riding Rainy much better these days I still don’t trust him as much as Louie. Rainy tends to freak out over small things and yesterday there was a man on a ladder working on a light near the arena. I expected him to spook every time we went by and to make sure he (Rainy) was paying attention to me, I wiggled his reins a little bit at that end of the arena. All went fine.
Devilyn had me and another rider do a rather complicated course. There was one technical, sharp turn. It went like this: jump, turn sharply, jump. The thing with Rainy is that I have to “recover” after each jump so there’s not a lot of time to organize myself and him to get to another jump quickly. After he jumps he tends to pull his head down as if he’s going to buck. If I’m not balanced, which I’m frequently not at this stage, he pulls me forward. I missed the turn most times I tried. Once I got it, Devilyn let me rest. All the other jumps went fine; I did them in the right order, cleanly, and without scaring myself. By the end of the lesson Rainy started listening to my cues more. Figures. Guess we’re both paying better attention by then.
It’s really amazing to think how far I’ve come in my riding since July. In July I was just trotting over poles and occasionally trotting over a cross-rail. Now I’m cantering full courses that include oxers. The jumps still aren’t very high (less than 3 feet) but memorizing the pattern and setting up for them (not to mention staying aboard) is not easy. I get to ride again tomorrow.