Baby its cold outside

Alrighty.... as usual the weekly update... as in last week... the beginning of last week lol   ;)

We get some great sunsets

Monday I got out to the barn a little earlier and hacked Louie with Karley. Apparently C has switched to riding Louie on Monday and he was a big brat, including bucking for her. He seems to finally have the winter wilds. I found him looking like he was on time out in the mucky round pen. Our trainer was finishing up with some beginner lessons so I took my time getting Louie ready to ride. He was pretty chill by thin point, but wanted to bulge and drift, things I don't notice and correct nearly fast enough. My knees and back were already a hot mess from 6hrs in heels (Christmas party shenanigans  on Saturday, so I wasn't feeling like doing much posting. We worked on canter depart (him picking it up faster, me not leaning forward) and downward transitions that didn't look like I just yanked the batteries out of him. It was a fairly short hack, way too easy for naughty boy.

Tuesday nights lesson was a bit of a departure from the norm since Magic's owner J has apparently switched to riding in the evening now so I had the choice of either riding Louie or Buster. Admittedly, I took the easy way out and chose Buster, who's beginner self was already all nice and clean and residing in a stall across from the tack room. This also meant I didn't have to jump Louie, since he still unnerves me a bit (I know I have to get over that, he's a very schooled boy).

I ended up getting on early, and with lots of leg got Buster's pokey self to walk a few laps around the arena. He was his normal sluggish self, so dressage whip in hand, we slowly got ourselves moving into a decent sitting trot when the lesson began. We did a few laps no stirrups (ugh!) and then lots of posting and two-point before a few laps at the canter. Buster takes lots of leg to get moving and his downward transitions feel like a car running out of gas. By this point I was feeling the burn of constant leg to motivate and wondering why I thought this was easier than Louie who takes so little to motivate.

Excuse my horrible Paint rendition

Then we moved into jumping. Which also coincided with the big semi deciding it was the perfect time to come and offload bags of shavings. We have bad luck with timing these days, first raccoon mating, now big scary semis and backhoes. Now I was really happy to be on Buster, who could care less about the ruckus outside. Magic dumped J (who luckily was able to hop right back on) and all the other horses were incredibly wary at nearing the end of the arena. We first went back and forth over an x to warm up.

Then we did a bending jump exercise that I found really hard, even at a trot because I really have not developed that Look-at-the-next-jump brain yet. We basically went over the x, circled around, and did two panels on a bent line, with a ground pole laying in between to "keep us bent" (aka make it feel tighter). Buster jumped looong to the first jump which totally threw my balance off. I still have a hard time feeling how I can contribute to getting the distance right, I still feel more like a passenger than a guide. The bending line from panel to panel I missed going the first direction and poor Buster banged against the second panel the second time over. Poor boy limped for a hot minute, but did remember to jump a bit higher on subsequent jumps.

This week I hope to at least hack one day and get my normal Tues lesson before all of the holiday trips start.