Our Weekend

Saturday is rained ALL day. We drove around buying half-price Halloween candy to make up for not being able to ride.

Sunday we got to ride at the indoor arena at the fairgrounds. We were late getting there (because of the law of the universe that requires there to ALWAYS be a problem when trying to trailer horses somewhere), so I only got about 45 minutes of the hour in the indoor. It wasn't bad though. The last time we'd been there was a show in March where she was a DITZ and awful. She started doing the same head-flipping-crazy-green-horse garbage and I pushed her to behave and she actually did! We even cantered both directions and she was pretty good.

After we rode in the arena we rode in the outdoor a little bit, Melissa made me ride Bayberry for about ten minutes. Bayberry is a 16H ottb mare that she's had about a year. She feels like riding a timebomb. My arms are still sore; she leans on the bit constantly.

We traded back and went on a "hack" about the fairgrounds. We rode around the arena buildings, around the parking lot, over to the race-horse barns. We rode them over different colored concrete, rubber mats, logs, etc. It was really fun and horses thought it was awesome; "What, all I have to do is not kill you and you're happy? Yey!"

We get to go back next Sunday. Hopefully we'll be able to get out of here on time so we can actually have a leisurely ride and talk to other club members.

We had another club meeting tonight and it was really fun. We scheduled a dressage lesson evening with an instructor. Melissa had a lesson with her last week. I haven't had a lesson from anyone but Melissa in probably a year or more. I'm so excited. And nervous of course, haha.

On a training note, our leg-yields are coming along nicely. We need more forward still. Our trot is getting better I think, but our trot-canter transition is still really rocky. I'm hoping we'll get to deal with that in our lesson. Our haunch and forehand turns are almost perfect. Melissa says they aren't Dressage style though, they're Western where she plants the foot. I didn't realize they were different. So, I guess we're ready for Trail class for next summer, haha. I'm not too worried about it. You don't need those turns in Dressage until a higher level. We're only trying to school Training right now.

I'm excited to be part of the Riding club we joined. I'm hoping to find more riding buddies to hang with for when Melissa goes home to Canada when she graduates. So far, they're an awesome group of women.