Apparently Distance December is a thing

Yeah, I suck at distances. No stirrup work is easy. Seeing something that's not there sounds like witchcraft if you ask me.

I was assigned to ride The Barbie/Cow, Rosie, on Sunday. I've seen other girls ride Rosie, and she hasn't exactly been the most, um, controllable mount. I know I need to learn how to ride more difficult horses, but can't I push that off until later? On the ground, Rosie is as laid back as they come. She was super quiet when I groomed and tacked her. Not to mention, my fancy saddlepad matched her coat nicely, and I got to ride in the Wintec.

I was already nervous when I got on, and I tried to keep my cues as light as possible. She was actually great. We did our warm-up, and there were quite a bit of times where she completely relaxed and stretched down. She responds well to leg, too—which is nice considering that she loves to cut corners—but she isn't over reactive.

Things got not so nice when we started to canter. A few strides in going to the left, she sped up just a little bit, and I froze up. My entire body went rigid until we walked again, but the same thing happened in the other direction.

Moving on, we got started on the distance thing. Miss J had poles set out before the fences to give us an idea of where our takeoff spot would be. The focus was on pace. Rosie got a bit quick coming around the turn the first time, then I jumped ahead, but the second time was better. We trot and cantered it twice, then we moved on to the flower jump. After the flower, we did a line. Rosie wasn't happy about leaving the group, so the turn to the first fence was more difficult than it needed to be. She then proceeded to run after the first fence and refused the second fence. I went back around and made her jump it, then we did it a second time, and she jumped both, but I'm pretty sure we took out a stride or two.

We cooled out a bit, then we went out on a relaxing trail ride, or as relaxing as a trail ride can be when Cas and Izzy are around.
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Comments

  1. emmaDecember 11, 2014 at 10:06 AM

    sounds like you made it work out pretty well, considering it was your first time on her! for whatever reason, placing poles get me all flustered, even tho they're supposed to help... lol

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. T. A. Eyo ¥December 11, 2014 at 4:37 PM

      It's the same for me. I always try to find the distance to the pole and mess it up. One more reason why I like packers :P

      Delete

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