Lesson 7: Meet Lilly

I had my 7th lesson yesterday! I got to the barn and pulled Simon out of his stall only to gawk at a huge 6" bite mark on his left side - right under where the saddle would go. And it was swollen... and knowing that Simon was girthy to start with, I showed Kim since I wasn't ready to try and ride him with that boo boo.

So today, Kim introduced me to "Lilly" (please see also: http://www.bitbybitfarms.com/horses_for_sale.htm ), a 4 yo TB/Warmblood cross. Right away I could tell how young she was - while I was tacking her up, she kept wiggling and was very nosey wanting treats as well. But I've ridden my share of green horses in the past, so I wasn't worried, but rather, enjoying the complete oppositeness from Simon. We tacked up and walked into the ring without trouble, and then when we asked for a trot I realized how much suspension she has! Simon moves very flat, and Lilly has quite the boost to the trot! Reminded me of the first time I rode Rocky after having ridden Sweetie all those years...

Lilly was very sweet and willing, and you had to pay close attention to her speed - I had to find that "spot" where you're going just fast enough to not break to a trot - because Lilly gets to a point and she says "I'm done now" and stops whether you want her to or not. Just green bean stuff. But I was impressed with my stamina as we trotted and cantered quite a bit before we jumped, and I had plenty of energy for it!

We started trotting over a crossrail, and Lilly as such a suspenseful trot that it's hard to feel when she starts to take off over a fence, so I got left behind just a little the first few times. She takes off further back from the fence than Simon would and it caught me off guard a few times. But we worked through it - and it was much easier to find my spots at the canter instead of the trot.

The other thing about Lilly is that she is still learning her flying changes, so we often had to break to the trot in a corner after a line of fences when she landed on the wrong lead. The lesson for me for the day was to make sure that we corrected the lead if necessary, and then continued cantering out of the corner. Lilly had gotten used to trotting after a fence, and wanted to break to the trot in the middle of the course. My bad, but I will do it better next time.

And yay me for riding a green bean! It was fun. Oh, and I found myself talking to her in a soothing voice almost the whole time. I'm not sure but it was complete instinct to do it on her since she's green. I don't normally do that when I'm riding Simon, but I couldn't stop myself while I was riding Lilly. She's such a sweet mare, and I don't think she minded my soliloquy a bit! Until next time...