Lesson Saturday

Saturday was a good day for me and the Little Beast. First of all, Phil was only 6 minutes late. (Meaning he arrived at 12:06 when he is supposed to be there at 11:00). Then, it was a nice temperature outside, so I didn't have to wear my huge coat. ALSO, all of the snow has fallen off of the indoor roof, so we won't have to deal with that falling off and giving the precious beast an excuse to pretend spook. That was what kept happening at our LAST lesson. It was pretty touch and go at a few parts, especially when she started doing it without warning. She wouldn't even tense up or anything, she would just all of a sudden jump to the side, dead stop, and fling her head up. It was aggravating. But anyway, back to Saturday. We did some "English riding club" work, meaning that the six of us were all on one circle on half of the ring, which was difficult to manage even when we were standing still. Then, we had to trot around the half ring (which is quite small for six largeish horses) and do trot poles. Then we had to trot a little fence. And of course, I, the fastest, was in the back, and Jaxon, the slowest, was in the front, setting the pace. Needless to say, we had some issues with the pace. And THEN we all had to canter around the half at the same time, a feat we can barely handle in the whole ring. Of course, I was on the only horse that kicks. Great. Surprisingly, though, Breezy was both rather slow (for her) and rather docile, which is probably a first. Then Phil finally let us off of the circle, but he had each of us do the fence on a bending circle, twice, which wasn't hard for Breezy. She's such a showoff. The most entertaining part, by far, was watching the others go. Kelly, the new girl, had been having some problems with Corona, and he pulled the same dirty trick that he always pulls (the same one that got poor Lizz off a few weeks ago) so Kelly fell off. Then, poor old Zip took this really fantastic long spot, and was so surprised that he tripped on the way down, which sent Lizz flying too. Then AK had a couple of close shaves with Jaxon, but she managed to stay on. After everyone had left, Phil had me and Breezy do this crazy confusing figure eight system, which was very, very fun, but we got to the point where Phil had to tell me in the middle, "okay go left, not go right, now left again," because it was so confusing when he explained it that I had to just wing it. But it was fun. I love Breezy. She's a star. Brooke said that she was a 30,000 dollar horse before she got her eye poked out, and she's still just as capable. I am so lucky to have her.