Well OK Then...

So I spent the whole last week feeling crummy, like the nauseous, achy but can still drag your self to work because its not quite that bad kind of sick. Considering I work with sick people, it was bound to catch up with me eventually. Got to the barn and found our trainer finishing up a long line lesson with one of her Groupon lessons on Buster. She offered to go grab my saddle so I could just keep him bridled and switch tack. Since I felt like I might yak at any moment this sounded like the path of least resistance so I happily agreed.

I hopped up on Buster and began to walk him in his usual pokey way around the arena waiting for the others in our "ladies night" lesson to arrive. Everyone finally got on and we all got to work. Lots of posting (ugh) and then some sitting trot. I promised myself that any time we were doing sitting trot I'd drop my irons, so I did. Our trainer said that's how she knew I was sick, I was offering to do more work. I have to work on not letting my thighs drop down. we moved into no stirrup posting trot (which I find impossible) so I just sat a faster trot. When we went to pick our irons, I struggled and Buster happily dropped to a walk to accommodate. This got me yelled at, and another lap added onto everyone riding without stirrups (eek).
More posting trot and two-point work. Buster makes you work to keep him driven into the corners and maintaining a speed that's decent.

L had set up a gymnastic, 3 jumps in a row, so we warmed up over the last X at an angle. So, Buster is the quintessential pokey, beginner lesson horse. I get lots of flak for riding him because he's a super easy ride (other than motivation). I don't know what got in him last night but as soon as we started jumping, he suddenly got a wild hair up him and all but ran at the fence. It was the weirdest behavior from him. we thought at first he was just following the others since we warm up as a group and he is a bit of a follower. He kept breaking his trot into a canter for the last two strides to the fence, which totally threw me off (who was this horse?!). E and I took turns doing figure 8's around the arena to the X. Buster was super strong (that just sounds wrong when describing him) and I ended up doing lots of into-the-wall turns and backing up. It wasn't my easy ride, but it was good work for me and Buster.

moral of the story: Never expect an easy ride

No riding until next Tues, unless I can squeeze another lesson in somewhere :(