Lesson 14 was to say, well, not my best riding. :) I had several spots that were just icky - one that I jumped ahead of Simon and then he put in an extra stride and it just looked terrible, I'm sure. We made up for it at the end, but overall, not my best ride.
Lesson 15 last week was much better. I think maybe Simon is getting a little out of shape as time goes on - because I'm the only one riding him, and that's only once a week. He was pretty lethargic, but finally woke up towards the end of the lesson. He comes back to me really quickly when he does get excited, and apparently he doesn't usually respond that well to other riders. We had several really perfect lines of fences, and it was so nice to have such a good ride after last week's.
We spent today celebrating CMav's 5th birthday, so my next lesson will be tomorrow instead. Looking forward to it! I did get to ride Rocky Sunday afternoon - I lunged him w/t/c, and he seemed a little better about the canter, both directions. But I have decided not to ask him to canter under saddle until he is consistently going into the canter without bucking on the lunge line. Today was better, but I'm just not going to chance it again yet. :) Last time I rode him (a week or so ago), I tried asking for the canter while riding, and I could feel him curl up in preparation for a buck, so decided not to. We lunged quite a bit that day though afterwards to make up for it!
I am really enjoying my barn - and I think the horses are, too! They look forward to me coming out there and come right up to the barn whenever I go that way. It's cooler and I've started keeping them in for an hour at least each feeding so that they have time to eat a flake or so of hay before going back out in the field. There is still grass in the field, but it doesn't do as much for heat production as hay does. I'm going to have to find some more hay here shortly to keep up my supply!
