Lesson Recap

Saturday was my first lesson in a long time!

Good news: I didn’t fall off!

Bad news: I somehow managed to minorly sprain my left ankle while in two point.

Yeah I don’t know how. One second I was in two point and went to canter a circle, and the next it felt like my ankle rolled in the stirrup. It was pretty weird. It was sore for the rest of the day, along with some blisters on my heels so that was a very interesting day lol. Thankfully, it’s feeling okay now after a lot of icing. So not a bad sprain just super weird. Anyone else have this happen to them?

Trainer G moved to a new place, a lovely barn that is full of gorgeous Morgan horses. Among those lovely Morgans is the only QH – Rocky, the horse that I rode. He’s shorter than Amber, and narrower (then again most horses are narrower LOL) but he still had quite a bit of get up and go. He used to be a reiner too, which I found nicely familiar. He’d slow down if I sat too far back or too far forward, and had very abrupt downward transitions. Just like Amber and all other reiners I’ve ridden lol.

It actually worked out really well that I haven’t ridden in a while because Trainer G has been starting to teach Rocky how to jump. We worked a lot on flatwork, and oh man my legs were dying from being so out of shape haha. Rocky doesn’t need spurs because he does have a good amount of go, but he still needs quite a bit more leg than I’m used to. I managed to feel it just once, but I still haven’t figured out how exactly to get the amount of leg and in what position it needs to be for the horses that Trainer G has ridden. Rocky isn’t spooky, he’s just very looky and gets distracted easily. He’s a bit older and creaky, but a good boy and he does like to jump. Once I got more comfortable I was able to get his attention a little better. We worked on 20 meter circles and controlling the shoulder while still getting him to bend around my inside legs. It was tough and not very successful with me being out of shape, but thankfully Trainer G was super encouraging and I was able to get our circles at least moderately even haha.

We started off with some poles and small crossrails, and only jumped a little bit. We’d only managed to go over the crossrail twice before my ill-timed sprain, and only got one more shot at it. It was actually the only time I managed to get my Cambox recording correctly unfortunately, so I only have one good video. Still, Rocky was fun to jump. He’s still figuring it out for sure, but while he’s unsure, he’s certainly a different ride than Liam.

So, it wasn’t a groundbreaking lesson, although everything along with my 4th and pinky fingers is sore! I’m certainly planning to try fitting in working out more with my schedule, but it’ll take some time. Either way, I’m hoping I can schedule another lesson soon!