"She's big, and she's long, and she's just a lot of horse"

I always get excited for spring. Winter is ew, and summer is meh, and fall is just Winter Lite. Spring is fresh and new and smells nice.

For some reason, Gabby really wants to be on the blog, so here she is, y'all

Except when we have intermittent thunder storms and whipping wind. Yeah, that's not fresh or new, it's just loud. Really loud. By chance, the poor weather overlapped with my first real ride on Summer, one of our hotter school horses. I use hot kind of loosely here because she's not necessarily forward, but things fall apart very easily, and she requires some micromanaging. I rode her once prior to this when we were doing a bunch of swapping in a lesson a few months ago. It wasn't bad or good, just very nerve racking.

My skill set is there to be successful on her. It's my mind that needs to catch up and stay focused without making me stiff or inducing a panic attack. Fun times.

Summah Summah!

Sometimes, when I have some knowledge of a horse and its history prior to riding it, I will mentally set a clear limit of what I'm comfortable doing. This is mainly to keep myself safe. I am fully willing to go beyond those limits, but if I just need to do a walk/trot only ride on a horse before attempting to canter on another day, then that's what I'm going to do. Beorn was like that. For a while, Baby was like that. Initially, I wanted to tell Coach S that I just wasn't feeling like going beyond a trot despite having flatted that horse at all gaits in our last encounter. Long story short, I chickened out and made a plan with a teammate to swap horses if it got to be too much.

And honestly? Kinda glad I chickened out. It wasn't a perfect ride. Our canter was a tad inconsistent; Summer is the type of horse that can tell if you're nervous and will "take care of you" as the kids say, but at my level, "taking care" of me turns into breaking to the trot when we're supposed to be cantering. Coach S wasn't too bothered and could tell I was a bit overwhelmed but reassured me that Summer is just big and long and a lot of horse. She takes an effort, and I was doing my best.

We did two grids of equal complexity. Our coach is a fan of equitation tests and integrated some good questions. We did some angles, simple changes, and a bit of counter canter. Our second test was a bending line, then a canter in, trot out line. Summer is very much not a canter in, trot out type of horse, which is why that line looks so ugly. Trainer decided it wasn't worth putting her through it again, so we ended on that.

As nervous as Summer makes me, it wasn't impossible to ride her. She's a generally calm, sweet, and reliable horse, just a mess if you don't remind her where all four feet should go. I like her. I like her so much that I'm considering showing her if the opportunity arises over the . . . summer. Plus, who doesn't love a good mare?