"Because you're sweet and lovely, I love you..."
Coach K is away this weekend so our Sunday lesson was moved to tonight at six. Since I worked late Monday, and will again on Friday, I skived off with hardly a pang of conscience--clearly I'm learning.
Big stuff first--we cantered. Not, I assure you, a lot, but K got us to set up in a corner and canter down the long side. First try on the left rein I frankly blew the transition, lost a stirrup, and barely saved the situation by not falling forward (well, yay for that.) After that we had one not-bad effort where Mitzi began to drift when I looked down, but then let me fix her. The third one was pretty good and we got a decent go the other way too.
There is video--I erased the two bad trips because I want to keep the good ones uppermost, but the best of the good ones was decent. I'll post it tomorrow.
Also good: Tiny Barn Tractor was tractoring around at the end of the arena where all the Stuff is (outside the fence--there's a storage yard down there.) And it hit me on the way home--
Okay, when I got Mitzi she was sheltered and afraid of everything. And tonight it hit me that five years later she's really just a horse. (Not in the sense of the quarter horse putdown, "meh, she's just a horse.") Gray Horse, most solid of citizens, didn't like the zebra poles either. And he'll stop and try to turn around if he thinks the lesson should end. Horse stuff.
Mitzi will spook, but she's not psycho about it. And tonight, when Tiny Barn Tractor was messing around outside the fence, she had a look and then kinda didn't care. I wouldn't have even called her "looky." She seemed mostly curious. "What are you up to, TBT?"
I mean, she has her holes, and some of them she wouldn't have with someone else. But she's mostly generous and easy to get along with, and she's definitely not difficult. Or even, when I help her out, all that spooky.
So there's that.
Big stuff first--we cantered. Not, I assure you, a lot, but K got us to set up in a corner and canter down the long side. First try on the left rein I frankly blew the transition, lost a stirrup, and barely saved the situation by not falling forward (well, yay for that.) After that we had one not-bad effort where Mitzi began to drift when I looked down, but then let me fix her. The third one was pretty good and we got a decent go the other way too.
There is video--I erased the two bad trips because I want to keep the good ones uppermost, but the best of the good ones was decent. I'll post it tomorrow.
Also good: Tiny Barn Tractor was tractoring around at the end of the arena where all the Stuff is (outside the fence--there's a storage yard down there.) And it hit me on the way home--
Okay, when I got Mitzi she was sheltered and afraid of everything. And tonight it hit me that five years later she's really just a horse. (Not in the sense of the quarter horse putdown, "meh, she's just a horse.") Gray Horse, most solid of citizens, didn't like the zebra poles either. And he'll stop and try to turn around if he thinks the lesson should end. Horse stuff.
Mitzi will spook, but she's not psycho about it. And tonight, when Tiny Barn Tractor was messing around outside the fence, she had a look and then kinda didn't care. I wouldn't have even called her "looky." She seemed mostly curious. "What are you up to, TBT?"
I mean, she has her holes, and some of them she wouldn't have with someone else. But she's mostly generous and easy to get along with, and she's definitely not difficult. Or even, when I help her out, all that spooky.
So there's that.