Back in the Saddle

...and no time for blogging!

They don't joke about this intensive practicum semester being hard for nothing--so much reading, so many lesson plans, and field experience is deadly to my sanity! Haha!

Really it's going good, last week was rough but those happen. I'm riding though! Only a couple times last week but comparatively that is fantastic! And we started out with another good ride today too!

River has been great, we are mostly doing walk/trot although I do lunge him at the canter in the round pen. Our covered arena (the only arena with good footing at the moment) is a bit small, plenty big enough to canter if your horse is well balanced--but the River man is not. He's getting better, but not there yet!

His transitions are coming along; if I am very careful to be fluid and flexible and move with him all the time, he has nice (albeit a bit slow) downward transitions. If (like today) I'm thinking of other things, he doesn't get the seat cues and then he leans on my hands awfully. It lets me know how I'm doing, for sure! Today we did more straight trot work to figure out where his "tired point" is, but Friday we worked on walk/trot transitions every time we circled the arena and he was really good. Letting a lap or two go by before I asked for a transition again seemed to let him be okay with practicing without drilling. We also did some hill work today out in the big hilly field and he was good, if a bit "up."

I was gushing about his marvelousness to Coach today and she decided she wanted one like him. ;) Well perhaps I'm a little biased, but I've got to say I adore this horse like nothing else! He is so good and tries so hard, it is really amazing.

And if you have finished this random epistle so far, I have news! Our first event is scheduled for March 30! We will be doing the walk/trot division of our farm's hunter pace. :) Maybe with Coach! I'm excited! :D