I had two lessons this weekend, to make up for missing my lesson on Christmas Eve when the barn was closed. The first had some unfortunate excitment, while the second was more low key.
On Saturday, I was riding Buttons again. I was supposed to ride Andy, a newer horse at the barn, but he came up lame. It was warmer (high in the 60s), so Buttons was not as stiff as she usually is in the winter.
We were working on getting our horses round. That is, we wanted our horses to lower their heads into the contact, so that they would raise their backs and engage their back muscles. Buttons can get into such a frame, but I don't have steady enough contact to achieve this with her consistently. I would get Buttons to stretch and raise her back for a few strides, but then lose it. I was having some success at the walk, and then we moved to the trot (without stirrups).
As I've mentioned before, Buttons has a stiff back. At times this makes trotting more difficult for her than cantering. So as I pushed her into a trot, she tried to evade and canter instead. She did canter for a few strides, although pretty slowly. I didn't have stirrups, but she wasn't running off, so all I had to do was turn her onto a circle, and she came back to trot. The unfortunate excitement came for the rider behind me, who was riding a new, younger horse named Timmy.
Timmy saw Buttons canter, and he decided to do the same. His rider was a bit surprised by this and leaned forward in response, trying to steady herself (she didn't have stirrups), which sent Timmy off faster. He cantered down half of the long side of the ring, then turned in, changed direction, and did a flying lead change. The skipping step of the lead change unseated his rider, and threw her hard on her back and head. I heard today that she's fine (one of the instructors took her to the hospital), but at the time it was pretty scary. I've fallen a lot and seen a lot of other people fall, but in this case, the fall-ee was pretty woosey afterwards and experienced memory loss. Her helmet took the brunt of the fall, but there was a big mark where it had contacted the arena surface. We were talking to her afterwards, but then when we mentioned what we had said about 15 minutes later, she didn't remember. That's when the instructor decided to take her to the hospital. To reiterate, I heard today at the barn that she was fine, just that she shouldn't ride for the rest of the week, but at the time it really put a damper on things.
I did manage to end the lesson on a good note for me, as I got Buttons to round for me for a number of walk strides in a row finally.
After that lesson, I was hoping today would be more fun. I got my wish, as I was riding Sunny, who is one of my favorites, and we did some canter pole work to work on straightness when jumping (which Sunny is a pro at).
We did a "course" of poles. We started working to the left, did a two-pole dog leg on the diagonal, then up the other diagonal with one pole, then down the other side through a double combination. I had a lot of fun, and just let Sunny do his thing.
Sometimes when turning onto the diagonal he would throw his outside shoulder on me, which then needed some outside rein and leg to straighten. That was the only issue Sunny was having. HE got every lead change no problem. As for me, I had some trouble seeing the take-off spots. I used to jump regularly at 2'6" and I have jumped at 3' occasionally, so I know that I can get the timing, but it's been awhile. I need to get better at waiting for the jump to come to me. When Sunny has a quality canter, all I should have to do is bide my time, and then move with his jumping motion when he takes off. I had that a number of times, but maybe about 1/3 of the time I was slightly ahead of his timing. I was too locked onto the pole itself instead of reading the distance. Something to work on.
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