Lesson 4

Today was another great ride on Simon. It was very busy in the ring with all of the campers - they're so cute learning to trot and post on the ponies. We warmed up in all the madness without any trouble. Simon doesn't seem to care when other horses get close to him - he doesn't flinch or move or anything.

The fences today averaged about 2'3" maybe a few 2'6". After trotting the small blue gate a few times, we trotted in and cantered down the outside line. If you were to canter in, it should be a long 4 strides. If you trot in, it should be 5 strides. But you know Simon - he gets there eventually and the first 2 times we did it we squeezed in 6 strides! Finally I asked with enough leg and he did it in 5. We did another line the same way and it was lovely. At the end, we put a total of 5 fences together: an outside line, a diagonal rolltop, to the other outside line. The first two lines were perfect, and then with the last outside line, we got close to both fences - and made it 5 strides when it could have been four. We tried it a couple times again, but the 4 just seemed too long to me, and we finally did a really nice even 5.

I don't have much to say about flying changes - we just didn't do any today. Every time except once, Simon always picked the correct lead around the corner so I didn't have to ask. The one time he didn't, there wasn't enough straightaway to ask for a flying change, so we broke to a trot to fix it.

The best part was the compliments - "He really loves you!" Well, that's something I hope to hear about my husband, and I certainly have been known to love a horse before, but I've never heard the reverse - the horse loves ME? Apparently, he continues to do really good things for me that he won't do for other riders. I'm not sure exactly what I do differently - other than leave him alone and let him do his thing. But he's also so responsive when I ask him to move up to get a better spot. Apparently he's not always like that. :) I'd like to think that another part of it is the treats and the long grazes after a lesson, but I don't know. The other thing Kim said is that I'm not intimidating, and I don't force Simon to do things my way, but rather let him do it the way he likes. I'm still not sure what that means, but I'll take it!

Kim is taking a well-deserved vacation next week, so I will be anxious to ride again in two weeks! I'll have to "practice" on one of my own here at home. :) Until next time...