Sore Mouth & Another Horse

Yawn.  Man my back.  I joke that I need to find a chiropractor who will sponsor my 1,000-pound-college-backpack-carrying, desk-chair-sitting, awkward-jumping-horse-riding, sore-back-creating life.  Haven't found one yet.  Sadness.  But really? I canter (on the flat) a horse with a rocking sort of gait, and my back kills me the next day?  Something wrong with this. 

The Fringe has a sore mouth for some unexplainable reason (hopefully just a missing/loose tooth), so we rode yesterday in a hackamore.  Which was interesting.  She was really quite sensitive to it, which I'd much prefer to trying to pull through it, but bending/turning she didn't really get the idea too well.  Good thing she's starting to move off the leg.  But that meant we didn't canter as neither of us was extremely secure with this new-to-us contraption.  However, had a very nice groundwork session.

So instead at the end I traded horses with my riding lesson partner and rode Rusty, a big (okay, big compared to the little Arabs I've been riding) Paint Quarter Horse (well he looks like a QH anyway, I'm guessing).  Ha, obviously I don't know much about the critter.  In a dressage saddle.  Which was also interesting as though I've learned some basic dressage movements, I don't think I've ever done anything in a proper dressage saddle.  But.  He was pretty nice, very stiff though, something like a robot.  Did everything I asked (except canter on the correct lead unless I insisted) but didn't exactly have any sort of relaxation or flexibility.  Plus he is quite spooky on the ground.  I got permission to ride him too for free rides/groundwork.  I'd like to do some groundwork with him and see if I can persuade him that people on the ground are no worse than people in the saddle.  We'll see, I know there's at least one other student riding him regularly so I don't want to overwork him.  Presumably he's also quite hard to catch (what is this with giving me all the hard-to-catch horses to free ride?!  Does the Coach think I need more exercise? lol) but there are worse things in life.  The Coach will be gone Friday for a clinic, so I may or may not be riding the end of this week.