From A to Z

I've been riding Pro for the past 3 days because of a scheduling conflict and what it's taught me is that with Kate and I alternating Pro is in WAY better shape than I am ;).

Sunday was a wasted ride. When I showed up the barn manager's dog had run off so she asked me to keep an eye out while she was driving/walking around looking for her. When we got to the arena Pro was convinced something scary was hiding in the brushy stuff behind the mirror. Since I kept hoping to see a little Jack Russell popping out of it, I was looking where he was and well, you all know how it goes when both horse and rider are looking. I did get 2 good things out of the ride. 1) I decided that my stirrups were still at jumping length and dropped them a hole. That made it much easier for me to sit properly in the saddle. I think I could stand to drop them one more but I want to wait and see how I feel after I get used to this length. 2) I got to practice my effective riding position/seat in the face of snorting, stopping, and squirming. Engaging my core made me feel like I didn't really have to worry about what he was going to do and so provides motivation to do it more often.

Monday we had a very good ride. Big Horse was out with his owner having a lesson so that took up about 2/3 of the ring. I staked a claim to a 20m circle in the good footing at one end though and tried to ignore them. Pro worked pretty well. I ended up doing a lot of transitions with him. Big Horse was working on trot transitions and that motivated me. I personally think Pro did his much better much faster, but I guess he's a lot less horse to collect. Whatever the reason, I was happy with it. Pro kept throwing in gratuitous bucks at canter departs, so he wasn't an angel. I think it was partly him demonstrating his lack of equine social skills as the issue was worse if Big Horse was on our half of his work space.

Yesterday was the "Z" portion of the three rides. I'd had an awful day at work and was tired and stressed when I got to the barn. The horses weren't ready to come in yet so I couldn't do my chores so I opted to just walk around on Pro bareback. In the dark. With a halter and lead rope. Pro thought I was crazy. The barn manager and Big Horse's owner thought I was crazy. But I was really in the mood for one of those meandering rides like I used to have on my QH before I got into TBs. Pro seemed very confused about what the goal of the ride was. I don't suppose his owners before Kate were really the "meander around bareback and just chill" sort. He was very good though and just trucked around at the walk. We did a couple brake checks but mostly did circles and serpentines while I worked on getting a good feel for his walk. Nothing strenuous and we were out for maybe all of 10-15 minutes, but it cheered me up and felt semi-productive, so I was happy with that. It was a very dramatic difference from Sunday, that's for sure.