Trivial Todd; Bomb Babes; Stinker Stan

Can you tell that my alliteration is on point?

So, first, that lesson on Wednesday, kind of bummed that we didn't get to stay outside for the entirety of it. I had to ride Todd because Baby was being ridden by a someone showing this weekend. It was eh, so, so, nothing too exciting to talk about. We did quite a bit of back and forth between rising and sitting trot plus some half seat and no stirrup work. Todd is a special kind of behemoth, one that won't canter unless you get everything precisely right, so that didn't happen a whole lot, and, when it did, it took an effort. Then came the whole staying with him over a fence. The behemoth also has a special kind of jump. Imagine the flattest jump possible, make a graph out of the horse's topline, find the function that corresponds with that graph, then make a vertical compression by infinity. In simpler terms, he jumps flat. We did complete a course in the indoor that almost made up for the large amount of disagreements that held through most of the ride.

I got on Baby and Molly afterwards for little stuff, mainly to do one course on Baby, which was pretty good. Her left to right change is there, but right to left isn't there yet (and it might not ever be there considering her gait).

Poneh squishing

I rode her again on Saturday because she didn't end up going to the show. Again, eh. We were halfway there, halfway not. The flat work was great, and we had a number of good canter transitions. The right bend is coming along well. I had a 2' course set up, and I trotted a lot of the fences multiple times before putting everything together. The only issue was a line. It was a tight 4 . . . or long 3 as Baby thought. It wasn't so nice the first time through, but the other times were great, and she's halting very promptly after each fence. I had a 2'6" fence that we did once in each direction, then we cooled off. She was still a bit rushy, so I'm taking it back down to cross bars with ground poles, both trotting and cantering. I will say it was a ride worth skipping prom for.

So cute.

Today, I was greeted at the barn with a chorus of snickers because I was riding Stanley. Stanley is a, well, something, um, ex-stallion is all that I'm sure of. I think he had some training before Miss Jan got him, but I don't have a clear history. In any case, he's a handful, but at least he's a sweet heart. I guess I have a thing for grey geldings.

He's a pretty smooth ride, too. He likes a long rein and light contact, which I can't complain about. My biggest issue was getting him to bend and stay moving forward at the same time. I would place the inside leg on and ask him to bend, he'd slow down, I'd add some spur, he'd get very irritated because cues are confusing. Tbh, I get how you feel, Stan. This whole inside leg to outside rein thing still makes 0 sense to me.

Other than a very stressful red crossbar, Stanley was an absolute gem (considering). I was struggling with the whole keeping my foot in the stirrup thing today. It happens, right? I also figured out that investing in a pair of spurs might not be a bad thing because I will probably never get used to using Miss J's. I have baby ankles, apparently.