Plans

So it was extremely cold yesterday... and I still went riding. I went over to HM's place and rode one of her three horses. It was windy and cold. But lucky for us she has an indoor arena. When I own my own place I'm going to have an indoor arena. It would be sooo nice.
So I rode HM's Thoroughbred Ollie and aleythia rode Tea. Not sure if it's tea or just plain T. I'll just do Tea. She had me put a bridle on Ollie so that I could practice using contact. We'd asked about it before. I wanted to get a feel for what it should feel like when I try it with Misstack or any of my other horses. The hardest thing to do was to keep contact on an upward transition to the canter. It was fun. And then I wanted to see what it felt like when I didn't collect him so I let go of all contact and that was fun! HM asked me if I was more comfortable that way. Definitely. I'm more relaxed and move easier with the horse. I suppose it's because I've never had to ride a horse with contact and not letting my arms relax throws me off a little bit.
Aleythia was having problems riding Tea's canter. Like she wasn't quite with the horse. I would describe it as being behind the horse's action. Like she was leaning back to far. HM suggested that she bring her shoulders forward so that they were centered over her hips. That definitely helped. She was more balanced and it looked a lot more smoother. I've told her that she needs to bring her upper body forward before, but that made it seem more simple. Sometimes it helps to have someone rephrase it. That's how I was with learning how to sit Ana's trot. I was reading in a magazine and it said just relax your lower back. All the sudden I had a light bulb moment. That totally made sense. I could do that. Aleythia always told me to relax, but that doesn't sound easy. Like relax what! When I had a small thing that I could focus on to relax it worked much better and I learned how to sit Ana's trot.

I asked S more about her horse Patches that I'm going to help her train. I wanted to know exactly how much he really knows. She said he can be caught and he leads, but not real well. He has been longed before. She said that when her dad put her on him he followed him just fine. Patches is going to be S's dad's new Possy horse and that just means that they help out with local events on horses. The horses need to know how to complete a trail class. So, like side passing, getting on and off pulling stuff, opening and closing gates, going over logs, used to strange noises, backing up, and all that other stuff. S said that she almost didn't want to train Patches cause then her dad told her that he would just get another horse and she kinda wants another horse, but then he said that he would sell all the other horses to do it. So, we're training Patches. I'm thinking that if we get out there often enough we'll be riding him within a month.