Another successful day at riding club!

Photo credit to Pete Foley - again - thanks!

Well, what can I say, if I keep celebrating my riding club rallies with champagne, I might become an alcoholic!! So, none of that this time, I'll just have to get used to things going well (I HOPE).
No Nicole and Joe as co-pilots today; being Easter Sunday Nicole decided to stay home with the family, so Tal and I ventured out all by ourselves for the very first time. (Tal has been out on his own, but I haven't!)

• He loaded beautifully this morning. Darren stood in the float for me to 'play catch', and on he walked - what a champ! We had a good trip in and I un-loaded him by myself as well. (I might add that I hooked the float on by myself again too, but Darren took it out of the shed. It was as I approached Napoleons that it occurred to me that I had not removed the jockey-wheel and I was a bit worried that Darren might not have checked-out my handiwork before driving off - aaagh. So, I pulled over as soon as possible, but of course he'd removed it - PHEW! I won't be doing THAT ever again!!)



• Tallic tied-up to the float nicely and I was able to go and have a quick 'nervous one' before I had to quickly get saddled-up and into my poles lesson. Jill turned-up on her boy in time to hang-out while I bridled him and led him into the SJ arena. It's been so nice having such support and she again offered to 'block him in' if needed - luckily it wasn't.



• I did a bit of ground-work (after Marianne, the instructor has ascertained my plans for the lesson, which included her assisting my mounting when the time came). Mounting wasn't quite as easy as it should be, he was quite fidgety and he did a few laps around the blok that Marianne had grabbed for me. We'll have to work on that.



• So, off we went, joined in with the others, and as they were ready to trot before I'd actually gotten on, we just did a couple of laps including over the poles grid and we were ready for a trot. I started and the others followed.



• He's pretty good on the right rein, but his left rein was woeful. Marianne offered some great instruction to help me here, and we all stopped for a little while to discuss position and we did some turns on the forehand to demonstrate the moving of the horse around a slightly raised inside rein and moving the quarters across with the inside leg. Tallic and I did a great job!! This did in fact set us up for better left bend and it improved a lot more when I started doing sitting trot. The main thing is for me to remember to ride properly, ie: bent elbows by my sides, bum underneath me, and if I ask him to turn, he has to bloody well turn! I have to keep the pressure on until I get what I asked for and then ride forward again. Once I started doing that, his acceptance of the bridle improved immediately and I got out of the pull and grab situation I had found myself involved in. I KNEW what was going on wasn't good, but I think I was in a bit of a tense frame of mind and I'm SO out of practise that I just wasn't using my head to ride.



• We were working on his better rein again, and the others were starting to put together a bit of a jumping round, so we were basically going around and staying out of the way. I began using the jumps to ride around, kind of doing big serpentines to change bend/flexion and rein. Because I'd started sitting trot, and keeping my elbows, and softening as he did etc, the changing of rein was working quite well.



• There were a few times that Tal put the brakes on and pig-rooted, but I got him going again and then brought him down for a little break. I'm pretty sure he is doing this when he is tired, so my timing is very important.



• He wasn't perfect in this lesson, but the good news is that we coped with and handled things ok. He had a few little baulks at the new grey pony stallion, but nothing out of control or too scary (even for chicken me!), and he had a few funny jumps and canters over some poles, but again, we got through it. I probably need to relax and not be too hard on him if he does this. I've got to remember that he's not Cruiser and he's not going to take off bucking when this happens.

All in all, another successful day out. This was the biggest ride I've given him since the day I collected him from the AEBC. He stood beautifully at the float over the lunch break, and I took him for a little walk over to the SJ arena with Donna and Angel for a munch on some grass. Donna helped me load him, not perfect, but not too bad either. Good trip home which included a stop at the servo for gas. I left him on the float for little while when we got home because he's in a bit of a rush to get out when we arrive, but he did ok. Yay us!

PS I chose not to do an afternoon lesson because I felt neither of us are fit enough and I wanted to have a positive day out.