Lesson 2/27/12

Sorry for missing last week's post. I just never really got around to it.

Anyway, my lesson on Monday was really good, and really bad at the same time. As I've said before, Kilo has been very grumpy down in the barn, and lately he's gotten worse. Apparently he had Lyme disease, not rain rot, which has made him really sensitive. This week, Kilo was trying to bite me before I even got him out of his stall. I hooked him up to the cross ties, and even at this point I was really cautious and nervous that I was going to get bitten. I guess I kind of worked myself up a lot into getting so nervous that I couldn't really do anything near Kilo. Horses sense that kind of thing, so Kilo probably knew I was scared and used that as an opportunity to try and intimidate me more. After waiting for someone to come down and help me, the barn owner came down. She tacked him up herself, which really makes me feel useless. I feel like it's my fault that I was too scared to do it myself, which it partially was, but I just hate the feeling of being incapable of doing something as simple as that.

The owner told me that horses in the wild will come forward to another horse that is threatening them in order to try and make them take a step back. She said that when Kilo tries to bite me, he wants me to get intimidated and step back, which of course I do because I'm so nervous. I really need to just toughen up and not allow him to do that and let him know it won't work. Next time I will do that!

After that whole ordeal that I'm trying not to dwell on too much, I headed up to the ring with a somewhat happier Kilo. For some reason that I don't understand, he seems to get over his grumpiness as soon as we're out of the barn. He still tries to bite me occasionally but not as much. Up in the ring (I was about ten minutes behind everyone else because of the waiting) I got on Kilo as soon as I could and joined the warm up.

Before I continue I just wanted to let you all know that the dressage show is on April 21st. I'm still planning on participating, I just want to get to a place where I am comfortable with my horse first, which right now I'm not really feeling that way yet. Where I was headed with that announcement is that the dressage ring is now set up in the big ring (which is now back in the place it used to be, on the far side of the riding ring), so the area that we ride in is a bit smaller.

Because the dressage ring was set up and most of us said we were planning on being in the show, our instructor had us practice walking down the center line from letter A to C. It was hard because if you didn't have your horse going fast enough, he wouldn't stay straight. We did this for a while and then we practiced some 20-meter circles. If you don't know what those are, you can look back at my posts from last year on the dressage show and get updated on all this stuff. After that we trotted. Since there were so many of us in a relatively small area, we mostly took turns trotting until we caught up to the horse in front of us.

Tonight I got to canter for the first time in months which I was so excited about! Also, I've never cantered on Kilo so that was exciting too. We again took turns going, so each of us could have plenty of room to canter a couple steps before catching up to the next person. The first couple of times I went, I didn't canter because my reins were too long. Also, I had to get Kilo into a really energetic trot before he would go. The third time or so I went, Kilo started to canter. His canter felt kind of lumbering almost, but unfortunately I don't really remember exactly how it felt. The next time I went, I got to canter down the long side and it felt really awesome. My instructor and the barn owner, who was watching, both said that it was a very nice stretch of canter. The owner said the Kilo actually looked like a normal horse too for once (he has large shoulders and usually looks kind of clumsy). After that, I was pretty satisfied with my lesson. Obviously not with the previous issues in the barn, but for the moment I could forget all of that and just enjoy the night.

Working at a Horse Show

A couple of days ago the barn owner emailed me asking me if I could help out with a horse show on Saturday the 10th (yesterday). I would get paid 30 dollars (yay!) and it would go from 7am to middle-afternoon. I said yes, of course.

When I got to the barn I met another helper named Alfia. There were other helpers and riders around too. The barn owner had hired someone to trailer their horses to the show (it was about 30 minutes away) because there were maybe seven riders that were going to be in the show, and we needed to bring five horses with us: Dusty, Moo, Annie, Chachi, and Dixie. Annie was trailered seperately than the other horses because there wasn't enough room. We helped load the trailer with all the supplies, like water buckets, hay, grooming tools, and tack, and then we left. I rode in a van with Alfia, four riders, and someone's mom and sister.

When we got to the horse show location I saw there were two rings - a big one and a small one. I think the small one was made of all gravel while the big ring had a ring of gravel around the outside and grass in the middle. Grass was everywhere - it was heaven for the horses! We unloaded the horses and let them graze.

Basically what I did was hold horses that weren't in upcoming classes, and I was just there if anyone needed anything. I took turns holding Dixie with Alfia because she required you to walk with her - she wouldn't stop moving! So while I walked with Dixie, Alfia got to sit down, and vice versa. It was a long day - and it all consisted of standing. It was fun to watch the classes though, and some classes had almost all of the people from our barn in them! It was often chaotic too, because some riders had to share horses or switch them to start their next class. At the end of the day though, when everyone had their ribbons, I was happy I had come. I unfortunately got a horrible sunburn all over my face because I didn't bring sunscreen. It was cloudy when I left my house!

Anyway, by the time we got home I was almost falling asleep standing up. I was so tired from standing all day. But like I said before, I was glad I came, and I even made 30 dollars doing it. :)