Rhapsody Lesson

So because I thought I would give my foot a break (well of sorts...) I decided to take Rhapsody today in lieu of a jump lesson on the Coach's Thoroughbred, Lass.  Still not sure which choice really would've been easier on le foot, and two hours of anything is a stress to it, but oh well. 

We had an overall nice walk-trot-canter-on-the-flat lesson (since Rhapsody is very far from jumping anything).  The jump field is always interesting to ride spooky horses in, since there's a subdivision about 100 yards away behind a tree-hedge and after school the kids make terrific noises in there. Rhapsody was not too keen on that.  But she did really well overall.  Coach took down the poles on the gymnastic line from last week and we just walked and trotted them as ground poles.  Walk was okay after the first go-round or so; trot was a different monster and though we went over maybe half a dozen times she kept jumping at the poles like she'd never seen them before.  So we slowed down and walked it again, and tried again at trot with some careful positioning and forward!(but not too forward...) work on my part, and she went better.  Then we worked some canter which threw me totally "off" because it just felt weird to me every time; the Coach however was nice enough to hop on so I could see what it looked like, and adjusted some things and thereafter Rhapsody decided she was going to toss in a couple little bucks at canter.  Fortunately while the Coach was on...no really! She agrees with me!  That's why my Coach is officially the awesomest trainer in the world! ;)

So we went down to the smaller arena and worked canter in there, she felt like a racehorse (I wonder why?...) but no bucking and she went fairly nicely aside from leaning in dreadfully--something all the ex-racehorses do.  We did get a bit of the fastest trot I believe I've ever ridden on a horse, while we were trying to get a canter transition, but after a gentle reminder that no, it's not speed-of-light-trot I want, it's canter, she gave me that and let me ponder whether I should try to stay upright while she's doing her motorcycle-ness (thereby sitting myself half out of the saddle), or not.  I shall happily take opinions on that.  Ha.  Yes I know, I very much want her to be straight up and down and bendy around corners and all this good stuff but we are far from there!