(Mis)Adventures in Leasing - Part 7

The first horse I tried was the hunter mare. She's a gray, 10 year old OTTB. Pretty much a horse that I would expect to see in Coach S's barn. The BO said that the mare is typically a hunter but gets into a jumper mindset once you put spurs on. This wasn't an issue for me at all until I got on her and realized that she is slow. Like takes a serious effort kind of slow. She's also not been worked regularly in a while outside of another lessor riding her sometimes.


Trying her basically turned into a 30 minute lesson in the evening sun. Fun Fact: it's still hot as hell down here at 5pm. This will be a fun adjustment. We did a lot of trot work to get her moving and then moved into the canter. She has smooth smooth gaits, which kinda makes up for how pokey she is. One drawback for me is that she has auto changes (hunter children, calm down). I genuinely prefer to have control over the flying change.

Since she isn't super fit, going over fences was kept super simple: trot poles into a cross bar. She was great every time through, if not a little lazy. My hands started to become a problem after the fence as I still tend to close my hands a lot harder than I close my leg. Despite that, she was good. A solid citizen, and a great first trial.