Springing in Spring complete with a shameless photo dump.

Apologies in advance for the one million photos. I rarely get any photos of me riding and Emily and I took turns in the jump school and riding in the ring so we could shoot each other. Side note: It was a good test for both babies to trailer together go stand in a stall and then play musical horses for the next few hours. Neither of them minded being away from the other which is great since some get VERY attached on even the shortest trailer rides.

Oh, and my horse self loads and unloads now:)

om nom nom nom

We started by putting each of them in the free school. Riley is familiar with this farm because it's the first place he went after the track (and the first place I saw him). What's interesting about the free school is that most horses will pick a direction and stick with it (like us, they are right or left-handed), and despite Riley's stiffness tracking right, he picked that side 85% of the time. Also, it takes very little encouragement to get most horses to perform in a jump chute. Once they are forward, they seem to enjoy the challenge, often hopping over the jumps on their own:)

Riley warms up in the free school -- I can't believe I can actually see his ribs!

I put together a little collage of his efforts over the jumps. I think he only knocked down one thing and his former owner was quite impressed at how honest and careful he is (especially when it matters)

Showing the progression of heights. I just love his expression!

**I was trying to upload video but Blogger is being a butthead


We let him have a little break and after Emily was done playing with her guy in the ring it was my turn. I was nervous having an audience, but Em was on hand to give me pointers and help me through things.

Riley says, "it's cool if I just giraffe around while you sit there looking at the ground and not bending your elbows, right"?

I let him warm up on a loose rein while he took in everything and then I asked him for a little more contact. He really impressed me with what he remembered from our last lesson (collecting on the short sides and lengthening on the long sides), he was forward and I hardly had to nag at all.

Suppling near the gate back to the barn = hard work! Thank God I am finally sitting up straight.

I love this. there's a slight loop in the reins and he's holding the contact where he likes it.

While he's behind the vertical here, this is just before I slipped the reins a little and he gave me some beautiful stretchy trot.

We moved on to the canter work and I'm pleased to say he's feeling much more balanced! I think the Pessoa has helped with that for sure, but I'm also trying to be really present when I ride and being thoughtful about making my leg long, sitting up tall and relaxing my hip. Emily said it was the best she's seen me ride him.

First, his good direction. Love his hind leg in the top photo -- but I need to stop doing whatever the hell I'm doing with my left hand.

The after a few tries and techniques, we finally got his right lead. Now, we know he can canter just fine tracking right, but my right side is ALSO my stiff side, so I think that throws him off. I was able to do a little haunches in down the long side and right in the corner, ask and open my right rein while holding with my left (so he's sort of counter bent). And guess what? It worked. Once I could visualize how to move his body to set him up for success we got the right lead three times!

Proof, the elusive right lead canter.

Feeling very sure of myself, we moved on to some jumping (and I finally jacked my stirrups up a few holes -- why was I riding so long???). I haven't jumped at all since last summer and really not consistently for awhile, but I was totally game yesterday. I've also never "officially" jumped Riley. We've done a handful of paper chases and jumped logs and small xc jumps but nothing in a ring with fill, etc. While he's still green to the jumps, he's not half as wiggly as he used to be, so I just try to give him support with my legs and a nice soft rein so he's not worried about getting caught in the mouth. Ps. timing was a little off with the photos, but I gave Em a two second intro on how to use my camera and off we went.

Not really sure why he jumped this one sideways, or why I am crawling up his neck:)

His first roll top (the other side had lots of fill with fake flowers etc)

Next time around, oh, I can just canter that Mom.

First little coop where you headed in to it toward the barn but had to make almost an immediate right hand turn. He was very good for this.

All in all, it was a pretty terrific day. The weather was outstanding, Riley was game for everything I asked of him and exceed my expectations in the jump chute! He's finally starting to look more like a thoroughbred and less like a quarter horse! We re-evaluated our goals for the next few weeks and our new plan is to go XC schooling in the next week or so, we have a paper chase this Saturday and our first HT will be at St. Augustine Pony Club. It's a super friendly course for babies and weanie riders alike.