Beautiful Things

I have had the best time with my horses and other people's horses. Last Sunday Aleythia and I went to Holly's to ride and we worked on position. One of the exercises was to stand up in your stirrups above your pommel and stay there. The end goal is to be able to do that at all three gaits. It's quite the leg workout. I don't know how long I did it, but the next couple days I was really sore. Another exercise we did was to start trotting: sit two strides, post one, and repeat. Then do the opposite: sit one stride, stand for two. The third exercise was impossible. You were supposed to go into two-point and bend at the waist and try to bend to your horse's neck. I. can't. do. that. After those exercises there was an immediate difference in how secure I was in the saddle. Then I tried sitting Oly's trot... It's a work in process. Like always we did a little bit of jumping and I jumped Oly over two jumps right in a row. There is a name for it, but I don't know it. He would jump the first one and would immediately have to jump again without taking another stride. It was so much fun!!! I rode T too. Bareback. And we jumped bareback. The jump was only about two feet or so. Probably less. That was fun too.
Tuesday Aleythia and I went to ride our own horses. We only had time to ride one horse. I rode Misstack and Aleythia rode Ana. I wanted to see if Misstack would do contact... she can. She might not be real good at it, but she can definitely do it. This is what she can do. She figured it out at the end.

The walking finally clicked for Ana. It's so cool. She finally gets it. It still needs work, but she is so much better! Wednesday we discovered that she is now a Cadillac. Terry got the chiropractor to come out and he adjusted her hip. It is such an improvement in her canter. Usually her canter is jarring, hurts your back, and makes you look like a fist year rider. Now she has that canter that Terry always said she had when he was riding her. She just needs to slow it down. So here's a before and after.

before

after

Thursday I rode Santana and tried to sit it trot without stirrups.... I could. I love it!

Today we went with Holly to her dressage lesson and I realized how little I know about the position of a horse. Like dropping the shoulder, being stiff, ect. My dressage vocabulary has greatly expanded. The highlight of that was riding Rosa. She is such a powerful horse. It is so different to ride her than any horse I have ever ridden. I don't really even know how to describe it. She has the most beautiful gaits. I love that horse... who wouldn't.