Camp Day 3

Today's weather was just as nice as it was yesterday, if not better. There was a nice breeze and it was cool in the shade. In the circle today we shared who was the first horse we've ever ridden. For me, it was a horse named Sargent (I'm not sure how to spell that). All I remember about him is that he walked really weird. It was funny to hear reactions when people were remembering the horses that had come and gone.

Today for riding we worked on jumping (yay!). While other girls had to switch their horses for ones that could jump, I was glad because I didn't have to switch from Annie. I'd never jumped before, so I was a little apprehensive, but only because I knew almost everyone else had. Luckily for me, after our warm up the barn owner just kind of went over everything again to remind everyone. We started by walking and trotting our horses over some poles. Then we did that in two-point, and we practiced doing a sort of half-seat, where it was half posting half two-point. It was kind of strange to me. I still don't think I really understand it. Anyway, then the barn owner set up the smallest jump you could have, and we all trotted over that. The first time I tried Annie swerved around it. The second she stopped right in front of it. The third time I got her to go over it, and most other times after that I could too. This was pretty much the extent of my jumping today, if you could call it that. All Annie really had to do was hop over it. Not even. Most of the time she stumbled over it, making me lose my balance. I guess it's a start, anyway!

After a while of taking turns going over poles, we sort of separated into two groups - the people who wanted to jump higher, and the ones who didn't/couldn't (me). My group and I watched the others jump for a while. It was definitely cool watching them, though the jumps weren't raised very high. It was cool because the horse would trot up to the first jump, jump it, and canter out of it and over the second jump. Eventually I started to try to get Annie to go over the smallest jumps and poles over on the other side of the ring again, but she insisted on swerving and was being very difficult. I talked with the barn owner and she helped me get Annie to go over them a couple times. I don't think I did them very well, but I guess it's good just to get used to the rhythm of a horse going over some poles. Hopefully I can talk to my instructor at my next lesson and we can discuss jumping a little more.

After jumping we got to canter. All the riders got in a line and we took turns cantering around the ring. Normally Annie's pretty good about cantering, but today she refused to go into the far end of the ring, so when it was my turn and she swerved into the middle of the ring, the barn owner had me do it again until I got Annie to go into the corners. It was not an easy task and it took me a bunch of tries, and by that point I was getting really annoyed at Annie for being difficult, which I shouldn't have been, because it was partly my fault. I think I got her to do it once before we stopped. After that I was ready to go down to the barn, which is what we did.I untacked Annie and washed her back legs as I was instructed by the barn owner. Because that took me a little longer than normal, I changed and went right up to the porch for lunch.

Yesterday the barn owner told us we would be having a contest, like they did every year. It's basically a costume contest - you and your group have to pick a theme, and you get to dress up and paint your horse. My group picked an Underwater/Scuba Diving theme. I'll explain our idea in more depth later, when we actually have the contest. So after lunch, my group and I talked about what materials we needed, and then we headed down to the garage to do our craft, which was decorating memory books and sun visors. The memory books have pages so you can write what you did each day of camp.

Once we were all finished our craft, we got changed and headed over to the neighbor's pool again. This times we stayed until about 3:15, at which point we headed back to the barn to do some horse grooming type things. We watched the barn owner give Tuffy, who has an infection, a shot, and I was taught how to pull a mane. Pulling a mane is what it sounds like - you pull out hairs to make it thinner and shorter. All you have to do is seperate out a couple of hairs, wrap them around a comb, and yank. It sounds painful, but most horses don't mind it too much. I got to do it on Tuffy, whose thick, coarse mane looked much better afterwards. I'm glad I learned how to do it - it's often done on horses and I thought it would be a good thing to learn.

I'm not sure what we're doing tomorrow. Again, I hope we do bareback riding (which I'm starting to think we'll never do), and if not that I would like to try jumping again. I'm also hoping the weather stays nice and breezy!