An Introduction
Welcome to my blog! Hopefully this blog will be a place where I can hash out my adventure back into the equine world.
Actually, that sounds too fancy. Really what I've decided I need to do is keep track of my riding so that I'm able to see what needs to be worked on, what works, and where I need to go.
So let's see, here's a brief history up to this point:
I rode at East Wind Farm in Melbourne, Florida for about three years with a lady named Gail when I was a teen. Her instruction in hunt seat riding instilled in me the value of good horsemanship, a good seat, and quiet hands.
This past summer (eleven years later) I got hit with the bug again, bad. My best friend and I started volunteering at Millcreek Farm, a retirement home for horses, and I knew that I had to get back in the saddle. I looked around and found a place to take lessons. I was very excited and very nervous. I was wearing a helmet that was about 15 years old! I ended up taking three lessons with this lady and enjoyed them very much but for whatever reason we couldn't get on a good schedule that fit the both of us, on top of the fact I was planning a wedding, so I stopped going.
After my wedding I started looking for lessons again. I found another place that is a lot closer to my home and took a couple lessons which I also enjoyed. I was planning to stick with this person for a while but I found an amazing deal. A half lease for $100 a month that would allow me to ride whenever I wanted. Not needing much encouragement, I went out and met the lessor and her horse Breezy. It was a done deal.
That was this past December. Between then and now Breezy and I have been getting to know each other and we have slowly but surely been getting back into riding shape. She had not been getting ridden much for four months or so and though I was running and riding a bit those riding muscles were not all there.
A month ago I started taking lessons again with a lady in Williston because I wanted to improve upon what I had been doing with Breezy. She rides and trains some very beautiful hunters. My first lesson went pretty well. I rode a gigantic warmblood mare who was in heat and who had very little interest in the tiny thing on her back. My second lesson was on a gelding named Spanky who I could barely get to canter and once I did promptly fell off! Wah! With my confidence shaken a bit (my instructor noted that my legs, though they looked good are "ineffective") I got back on and got the canter. I have another lesson scheduled with this lady and she said it was back to the lunge line for me : )
Which is great, actually, because a couple days after falling off of Spanky I fell off of Breezy while on a trail ride with her mother! Everything was fine until Breezy got it in her head that we were on our way home. Then she started getting anxious walking quickly with her head up and ears pricked. While I felt her energy I wasn't worried about it because she has always shown herself to be a very laid back horse with little to no spook in her. Well, we had just gotten on to the side of a road when a truck pulling a noisy stock trailer drove by and she decided it was time for a good spook. So I went from relaxing on an energetic walk to half out of the saddle during a quick stop and spook to doing a tuck and roll when she decided to skedaddle out from under me. Lucky for me, the guy pulling the stock trailer stopped and ran out in front of my quickly fleeing mount or else I would have had to get into running mode real quick like to catch Ms. Breezy who apparently thought she was being pursued by horse eating monsters.
Two times in a week is quite enough to make one think that there is something missing from the old riding tool bag.
Oh well, I am still getting back up into the saddle and that is what counts. I got to work with Breezy and her inattentiveness yesterday when I rode for the first time since a couple of new horses moved into the barn, a gelding and a stallion. I think it is the stallion that she has her mind on, go figure.
More to come as I am riding this afternoon. Today's goal : maintaining attention in the big grass ring nearer the stallion. Perhaps I will lunge first...
Actually, that sounds too fancy. Really what I've decided I need to do is keep track of my riding so that I'm able to see what needs to be worked on, what works, and where I need to go.
So let's see, here's a brief history up to this point:
I rode at East Wind Farm in Melbourne, Florida for about three years with a lady named Gail when I was a teen. Her instruction in hunt seat riding instilled in me the value of good horsemanship, a good seat, and quiet hands.
This past summer (eleven years later) I got hit with the bug again, bad. My best friend and I started volunteering at Millcreek Farm, a retirement home for horses, and I knew that I had to get back in the saddle. I looked around and found a place to take lessons. I was very excited and very nervous. I was wearing a helmet that was about 15 years old! I ended up taking three lessons with this lady and enjoyed them very much but for whatever reason we couldn't get on a good schedule that fit the both of us, on top of the fact I was planning a wedding, so I stopped going.
After my wedding I started looking for lessons again. I found another place that is a lot closer to my home and took a couple lessons which I also enjoyed. I was planning to stick with this person for a while but I found an amazing deal. A half lease for $100 a month that would allow me to ride whenever I wanted. Not needing much encouragement, I went out and met the lessor and her horse Breezy. It was a done deal.
That was this past December. Between then and now Breezy and I have been getting to know each other and we have slowly but surely been getting back into riding shape. She had not been getting ridden much for four months or so and though I was running and riding a bit those riding muscles were not all there.
A month ago I started taking lessons again with a lady in Williston because I wanted to improve upon what I had been doing with Breezy. She rides and trains some very beautiful hunters. My first lesson went pretty well. I rode a gigantic warmblood mare who was in heat and who had very little interest in the tiny thing on her back. My second lesson was on a gelding named Spanky who I could barely get to canter and once I did promptly fell off! Wah! With my confidence shaken a bit (my instructor noted that my legs, though they looked good are "ineffective") I got back on and got the canter. I have another lesson scheduled with this lady and she said it was back to the lunge line for me : )
Which is great, actually, because a couple days after falling off of Spanky I fell off of Breezy while on a trail ride with her mother! Everything was fine until Breezy got it in her head that we were on our way home. Then she started getting anxious walking quickly with her head up and ears pricked. While I felt her energy I wasn't worried about it because she has always shown herself to be a very laid back horse with little to no spook in her. Well, we had just gotten on to the side of a road when a truck pulling a noisy stock trailer drove by and she decided it was time for a good spook. So I went from relaxing on an energetic walk to half out of the saddle during a quick stop and spook to doing a tuck and roll when she decided to skedaddle out from under me. Lucky for me, the guy pulling the stock trailer stopped and ran out in front of my quickly fleeing mount or else I would have had to get into running mode real quick like to catch Ms. Breezy who apparently thought she was being pursued by horse eating monsters.
Two times in a week is quite enough to make one think that there is something missing from the old riding tool bag.
Oh well, I am still getting back up into the saddle and that is what counts. I got to work with Breezy and her inattentiveness yesterday when I rode for the first time since a couple of new horses moved into the barn, a gelding and a stallion. I think it is the stallion that she has her mind on, go figure.
More to come as I am riding this afternoon. Today's goal : maintaining attention in the big grass ring nearer the stallion. Perhaps I will lunge first...
posted by shortround at 7:20 AM
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