When things don't turn out the way you hoped...

hehehehehe I'm still "retired"

What do you do?

Well, if you're a horse-crazed lunatic like myself, you do everything you can to spend as much time around those beasts as possible. Everyone knows ponies are good for the soul.

I started making plans for Riley (shhhhh).

I booked a lesson.

I've been riding all sorts of OTTBs to keep my mind busy.

You change your blog header and background.

And when all else fails, there's the pool -- because a little R & R never hurts right?

And I am sorry for the breaks in between posts, and leaving you guys hanging with an announcement of a lesson cliffhanger, but the full report is coming right up!

Keeping a horse in Area II sure has it's advantages. I am a stone's throw from an Olympic rider in every direction. Like, True Prospect farm is a 5 minute hack. Which is great for training purposes because our neck of the woods is just littered with awesome trainers to lesson with. And with Riley still semi out of commission I thought that taking some lessons might help me get some finesse back (because boy have I lost it). Don't get me wrong, I'm stoked I get to ride all the OTTBs, but they're not doing much for my position on the flat and confidence over fences. It's been a really long time since I had a formal lesson with anyone but Emily. She's terrific and knows me inside and out, but we are super good friends and that leads to me bargaining my way out of doing things that I'm worried about and to be honest lessoning on Riley can be very challenging at this stage in his training. So I was pretty concerned I'd make a damn fool of myself. Plus, I needed to find a trainer who had a school horse or two to teach me on (again, a little bit tricky). As luck would have it, the nearby indoor that we hack to frequently, has a BNR who I've known for awhile. She competes a horse owned by the BO at our old place and she's a hell of a rider... I watched her teach a little last time I rode at the indoor and I really liked her approach so I contacted her for a lesson! She has two horses that she teaches lessons on, her former ** ISH and her former advanced OTTB! Woo hoo!



**There are no pictures of me riding him but this post will have plenty of fluff in the form of OTHER photos, lest you get bored**

Isn't this what everyone does when they have 20 minutes to kill before their lesson?

Riley 2.0 -- less feral edition

Also, this is what he does when I pull his mane. Snoozy.

She had me riding the ISH for this lesson (she said I could try the OTTB next time to see which I liked better) and he's a giant, kind, blood bay. I have a bit of a soft spot for ISH in general, and he seemed lovely. She said he was going to be a LOT different than what I was used to but that he's rewarding when ridden correctly. She asked me what I wanted to work on (flat work or jumping or BOTH) and I told her that I thought we could do a little of everything, explained what some of my issues are and that she could evaluate and go from there. We warmed up on a loose rein and WTC in both directions to let his back loosen up and we got down to business. She had me focus on riding leg to hand to lift his back and bring his hind end underneath him. What a cool feeling on a horse as big and powerful and well trained. There were all these little light bulbs going off in my head. She'd have us doing change of directions to get him into my outside rein (and she got me to stop giving away my reins), we worked in a series of circles at the trot and canter 10, 15, and 20 meters to help re-balance him and get him to really lift. I had explained to her that my hips are often very tight and she was able to help me get them swinging by telling me to relax my shoulders and let my hips move with him.

But the most amazing thing about our lesson was that she literally rode every stride with me. She spoke to me incrementally making changes stride for stride. Keep elastic elbows, long legs, relaxed knee, lengthening my body, 3lb kick with the outside leg to straighten him, deep breath to down transition, step into the canter, leg to hand. She was complimentary and kind, but also expected me to ride him the way he knows how. After 30 minutes of pretty much non-stop flat work (I was less winded than I expected) she asked if I wanted to jump! The weanie side of me wanted to continue working on the flat, but was I really going to miss an opportunity to jump a former upper level eventer?

Guys... I jumped all the things.

Yea, I know they are small, but I haven't jumped a course since last summer!

We started over an X and then she added a one stride to a vertical. She kept building it up from there eventually having us do a whole course. He was SO cool to jump! We didn't always find the best distances, but he would half-halt simply by me sitting tall and taking a deep breath! Again, she rode stride for stride with me, making small changes along to the way.

Here's a hastily drawn version of our course:

The red star is where we started. Trot to X, canter everything else

The jumps were all small, but a variety of things like a little roll top, two skinnies and plenty of fill. But for me, it was exactly what I needed to feel confident again. Riley really likes to celebrate after he jumps and I think I've developed some serious defensive mechanisms because of that. I didn't apply them to this horse, I absolutely trusted him to take me there casually and as long as I rode him properly, he did! I was really happy with how I rode and the trainer had plenty of nice things to say. She rides and starts a lot of OTTBs so she can appreciate where my habits have come from, but also understands that they are sometimes needed in that world! She's off to compete at Millbrook this week, but hopefully we can pick up where we left off when she returns. I'd really like to get Riley over to her soon too (maybe she can ride him and evaluate his shenanigans)!!!!

In the meantime, I've been riding horses for Emily and trying to stay busy. Summer is literally heating up now so it's tough to do much of anything in the middle of the day!

Philly has some awesome free pools!

Naturally, I read this while soaking in the sun.

Riley's hooves are sort of naturally trimming off the flakes and pieces around his nail holes, but I'm anxious for him to get shoes back on! I've been putting keratex on to help with that a bit and using durasole on his soles so he doesn't get too sore now that the ground is super hard again.

Apparently, all it took was one lesson to get me feeling super brave again, because not only did I eagerly accept Emily's offer to rode one of her sales horses (and jump her!) but when I got back to the barn I wanted to ride Riley.

You know, my horse who hasn't been ridden since the beginning of May (???) -- so do I lunge him first? No. Put him on the equiciser? Nah, too hot for all that. He was relatively clean, I gave him a quick grooming, threw on his bridle and...

What's dis?

I rode him bareback!

And he was good, and I was happy!

He stood next to the mounting block (which, that in itself is an achievement) and I threw my leg over and he was like, "oh, okay, you're up there now". We walked around all the pastures and I asked him to come on the bit for most of it which he was brilliant about. My goodness I love this horse! He got a bit cheeky is his turnout field, but other than that he was quiet and NO HEAD SHAKING!!!

Just a few more weeks until we're back in business!