Trying to Be Better

I am trying to be better in my posting since I have been a bit of a slacker lately. So the big news of the week is .......... I am interning at Horse News this summer!!!! I am really excited and looking forward to it. Of course, I will let you all know how it goes.

Anyway in other news, when we left off last post I was going to have my first lesson in what felt like forever. I went over to my fabulous trainer R's and of course had a great lesson. For those of you who read this blog regularly, you know I absolutely love R and can not sing her praises enough. Anyway, this lesson we had some company for the first time in a while and no it was not our usual lesson partner L. We were joined by my barn manager D on R's husband's QH gelding Taz. Taz is a chestnut QH with white blaze and short stocky build. Like Satin he has a great jog and can do some reining maneuvers like spins and sidepass. D rides for R every Wednesday to help her out and Taz is one of her usual rides. She gets a lesson with R every week but usually takes it in the morning while she is there riding on R's horse Jordan, a chestnut TB gelding that is quite the little spitfire and a great jumper. She decided to join me in a western lesson aboard Taz instead, though she had to use an english saddle since Taz's western saddle does not fit him properly right now.

We started off with the warm up of course and walk to canter back to walk transitions. Satin's walk to canter transitions have been perfect lately and her downward ones were equally nice. R had a grid of 5 crossrails set up very close together creating bounce after bounce. No, we did not jump them for those of you thinking that, LOL. R had us jog serpentines through them first every other one then making it harder by going through every one which created very tight turns. Then of course R said ok lets do it at the canter with simple changes in between. Again we were allowed ot start with every other one then move up to every one. It was hard to keep the canter making those tight turns and in that short time. The first time or two was a bit rough because as R said I needed Satin to have more impulsion and come more from behind. Once we got that down the pattern went much more smoothly. After that we did what I call a sidepass duel. D and I faced each other standing a few feet apart and had to sidepass together first one direction than the other staying together and in stride with each other. Of course Taz's bad sidepassing direction was Satin's stronger one and vice versa making it a little more difficult, but we made it work. After that we did our stair cases, making quarter turns at the jog. D stopped after that excercise as her old hip injury had been bothering her all day and had had more than enough at that point and Satin and I finished up with work on spins. We have not done spins in quite some time and R ended up getting on to give her a little refresher since she always has a much easier time getting a correct spin our of her than I do. Guess that comes with the job description. Anyway, after a few minutes R was able to get her back doing correct spins and I got back on. She pulled a flower out of the jump near by and said here wave this by her shoulder and keep your as I have taught you. I laughed spinning my flower around asking what the judge would think if we brought it in the show ring. Anyway it worked and we were able to get some good spins in. They need to be a little more peppy if we want to get back in the reining ring at QH this summer, but for the pleasure ring at CJHA we will be just fine. Luckily we also have one more lesson the week of the show which is fast approaching on May 2nd!

Thursday I decided to give Satin a fun day after all the work in the lesson the day before. We did walk, trot, canter letting her go at whatever pace she wanted instead of bugging her for a working jog or lope. Then we jumped a few of the jumps in the ring: a crossrail, a gait, some boards, and a flowerbox jump. I was really happy with her jumping. She stayed at a nice even pace, no rushing or galloping, and jumped the jumps at normal heights. She tends to jump things a foot taller than they are and rush through, but I guess now she is getting the idea and calming it down. We also did a few dashes in the ring and ended up with some good turns once I got her focused.

I did not ride Friday or Saturday as I was away upstate for the weekend visiting friends at their college and my friend J at her ranch.

Yesterday I came home cravign a good ride. I was just going to hack around the farm after I got the ten pounds of hair my horse was deciding to shed that day. But, E came out and asked if I wanted to do some work around the barrel. Of course I agreed and off we went. Satin was feeling a bit frisky from having 2 days off and the day being windy and was jumping and flailing around the barrel. The first time I let her actually run she was dying to buck but I did not allow it. It took a while, but I finally got her in gear and we ended up with a few nice runs and some decent turns though not her best ones.

I just found out the local farm we go to for jackout poles, barrels, and dash is opening tomorrow so K and I are dying to go, hopefully we have the chance. I will let you all know how it goes!