♣Ambitious♣

But I'm okay. It was your average — common, garden variety, basic — fall. Horse stops, you go down the neck, proceed to monkey hold for as long as you can, but then you slip just slightly to the side, thereby causing you to plummet to the ground. The show last weekend was somewhat of a success. Saturday was not a success. I fell on Saturday. Baby was just progressively refusing to pick up her left lead last week. We got one good transition on Thursday (but Thursday was eh so we don't talk about Thursday), but that was it. She kept picking up the right lead or just not picking up a canter at all. She's never been a fan of her left lead as we all know, however this is completely different from dropping on the forehand for the lead. This is why we don't talk about Thursday. Schooling on Saturday morning was great, actually. She was calm and responsive and jumped everything great if not a little bit slow. She was in for most of the day due to the fact that the Med...

I can do 2'6" at the show! That means that I can do the medal class this time around and not fall so behind in points! And that's another goal crossed off my list for this year! Whoop whoop! The reason I can do 2'6" is actually rooted in the fact that we don't measure our jumps that often. On Monday, I was curious to see how high I had actually jumped. Both the brick and the oxer coming in from the left were 2'6", but they looked small so we always assumed they were about 2'0". I've never been great at estimating. We were jumping the same stuff on Tuesday. Everything was 2'3"-2'6" except for the warm-up fences. Baby was much more together on her left lead, but she's still being sassy about picking it up and doing it nicely. I'll probably have Miss S work with her on Saturday morning because I wouldn't be able to get it in a time crunch (just not a good idea). Other than that one issue, Baby is so super re...

It's starting to feel like Mother Nature completely skipped over spring and went straight to summer. Mornings have become so hot and humid, and the afternoon isn't any better. I'm all for warmer weather, but this is just too much too soon. I took a private lesson today, and jumping was the focus due to my difficulties last Tuesday. I've finally settled on a stirrup length for the flat, and thank God it's a longer one. It at least encourages me to stretch my leg down instead of pushing it forward so long as I'm paying attention to what I am doing. I used it for flat and jumping, and it worked well, but I'll probably shorten them when I start jumping higher. We started trotting around, and she was going really nicely, forward but not rushing, and listening well to my leg and seat cues. Miss S had me do a figure-8 where I sat as I approached the center, then started posting again on the circle part. Baby was bending super duper, but I will admit that I was...

Things are looking up after my ride today. I was rushed into riding for about 20 minutes because apparently going out to pizza is a necessity in my family. They are lucky that I love pizza, but I still love horses more, so I made sure that my 20 minutes were productive. Miss S had a private lesson going on in the small outdoor, so I went to the big one. It seemed smaller than usual today. I got on and went right to work. Baby was a bit nervous about being away from the other horses—which is surprising considering how much she pins her ears when we ride in groups. I was riding with a longer stirrup today, and it felt nice to be able to stretch my legs down. We went around to the right for a full lap, then I did a ~100ft circle, and she slowed down a bit. We switched directions at the trot, and then she slowed down completely and went right onto a nice, light contact. We went around the whole arena, did two circles, then I asked for her left lead. She picked up the wrong lead at f...

In my opinion, the worst lessons are those where you ride very nicely on the flat but then screw up everything over fences. You get so excited, you're so happy to jump, and then you fail miserably. Nothing goes right, or left, or even up or down; everything just kind of sinks into a deep, dark pit of Hell, and you're left sitting there, feeling like crap and wondering why you chose to immerse yourself into one of the most expensive, time consuming, and physically demanding sports out there. But I did choose it, and I have no regrets.  I arrived at the barn today with a massive amount of confidence considering how well my private lesson went last week (in summary, it was awesome). Izz brought her camera with her, so we had a little pre-lesson photo sesh with her and Todd. They were adorable when Todd wasn't trying to eat; I got a funny picture of her when Todd picked her up off the ground with his neck, but she let go. I caught her mid-fall. She looks like she'...