First Lesson of 2017

Operation JumpAllTheFences (aka teach Savvy and myself how to jump and start eventing this summer) is officially under way with my first lesson of the year.



Ready to ride!

 

I was scheduled to start last Thursday, but weather kiboshed my plans with a super fun wind/snow storm. This Thursday however, offered up a perfect sunshiny day with warm temps to boot.



Just a typical Manitoba morning...where no horse gets ridden. :(

It turns out a few months off from heading anywhere with my horse was enough to bring on some serious nerves, but the whole trip there went just fine and I didn't even hurt myself this entire outing! Gold star for me!



Although there was one casualty - one of my winter riding boot soles came right off (luckily at the end of my lesson though). 

I arrived well before my lesson and had a lot of time to lunge her around the massive arena (which I had all to myself!) and show her all the mirrors/giant advertisement signs and see what kind of horse she would be after so much time off.

She spooked once when she kicked some sand against the wall and then again at an advertisement with a large horse picture on it. She had to sniff the pic right on the horse's nose a few times before she was sure it wasn't a real horse.

I knew keeping Savvy from getting too hot would be a major issue with this plan. It was great for me to be in a heated arena, but the fluffbum was already sweaty before I even got on. Once the coach arrived, I explained I would be fine with a really easy-on-the-horse type lesson so Savvy wouldn't get too hot. So two-point torture would be my fate. Maybe I should have told her I was also just getting back into work as well and shouldn't over-do it?



Wonder pony was pretty sceptical about this whole back to lessons thing.

As the lesson progressed, the arena went from empty to horse after horse coming in which was great practise dealing with the automatic overhead door opening again and again and keeping Savvy focused on task no matter what cute gelding had just come in.

And she was great! Not perfect obviously - there was a lot of head bobbing as per usual, some serious side eye every time we passed a horse and a bit of jumpiness at random noises (like snow sliding off the roof), but I was happy with the level of relaxation in her walk and trot and it felt quite enjoyable to ride.

As for all the two-point practise, I will not be walking tomorrow.

Next week I will head back and work on all the positional stuff we covered today, and moving forward, I think I will stick with the bi-weekly lessons at least until this whole winter/can't ride at home issue clears up.

It is amazing just how good I feel now. It was so great to get back to riding! Anyone else find nothing beats a good ride for your mood? Or is any kind of horse time do the trick?