Rode three horses yesterday in two hours, the Fringey and two others. What happens when the Coach decides to play round robin with horses. :) I feel terrible though, Fringe was bolting off for no apparent reason towards the end of the ride but I discovered when I untacked her that she had girth sores on both sides, and one starting under the belly. If that wasn't causing her behavior, it certainly wasn't helping it. Ugh now I feel like a horrible person. :-/ What I get for tacking up in a dark stall; next time I'll tie up at the hitching rack out in front where at least I can see even if it is 90-some-odd degrees. Or at least stop at said hitching rack and give her a thorough once-over before going into the stall.
Well we live and learn. Cantered for the first time today and she did really well; had a little trouble with taking the wrong lead, but posting on the wrong diagonal up to the transition, and asking in the corners, got us back on the right track. She has a quite nice canter. Also the girl I was riding with got on Fringe toward the end and she was good for her also. Apparently Fringe is becoming something of a favorite with the kids; all the better for her. I guess people assumed if I could ride her, she must not be too bad. Lol. Though I will miss working with her all the time, I can still ride her if she hasn't been worked too much, and can do groundwork with her whenever I want. I would like to get her started over poles and baby jumps on the long line but we'll see what Friday brings. I now have about a million (okay, a dozen or so) horses I can work with, plus a new "project pony," so I have to choose my priorities more carefully!
Also rode Tazz, an Arab gelding, and Tanner, another (suspected) Quarter Horse. Tanner is a nice Western horse that gave me flashbacks to my three years in Michigan with trainer D.! Except he jerks hard on the reins in canter if you're not careful. Which me, being small and with not the best core strength in the world (though it is improving!), does not like. But we worked with it and had a good ride. Tazz I have ridden before and though he was being a bit more of a spoiled brat than before (i.e. kicking out whenever a request cut across his line of inclination), a bit of hard forward trot work with lots of patterns and variety got him thinking more along the lines of listening to me than of kicking out. He could also use some back-to-basics work; however the equestrian team are the only ones supposed to be riding him. I snuck on today by virtue of the round-robin nature of the lesson. ;)
Planning for Friday groundwork and maybe a ride depending on how I'm feeling, who's there, and what's going on. We'll see!
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