Dressage Show: April 21st, 2012

After being yelled at multiple times for not doing it sooner, I'm finally blogging about the dressage show! It was a beautiful day - sunny and warm, although it was a bit too hot in the direct sun. I basically wore the same outfit that I did last year: my tan riding pants, white shirt, and jean blazer. My family and I got to the barn a half an hour before my scheduled time like I was supposed to, but when we got there we learned that the whole show was about an hour behind.  It was kind of a pain, but it was actually kind of nice to just watch everyone else ride first. I also learned that I wouldn't even be riding Cartwheel for the equitation, which was nice, although I wish I had known that beforehand.

When it was almost time for my first test, I started to get super nervous. I got on Kilo and he seemed pretty fidgety. I'd also seen him in the ring before though on other riders and he looked very slow and tired, so I knew I'd have to work to get him to pick up the pace a little bit. When it was finally my turn (I was the fifth to go), the bell rang and I did my test. Right from the start my center lines weren't straight, which I knew and tried to fix later. I was mostly worried about getting him to move forward, which he actually didn't seem to have much of a problem with. I was happy with the roundness of my circles and Kilo's overall pace, so that was good. I did have some problems with the transitions though. I almost didn't make my mark for a trot to walk transition, and I went into a trot too early for another. Overall though, I was happy with my performance. After you finish your test pattern you walk up to the judges stand on your way out so they can give you some comments. The judge told me that I had a nice consistent pace throughout the test which was good, but that after my free walk I had not tightened my reins enough so they were too loose the rest of the time. I took note of that because obviously it would be helpful to remember for my next test. After that I walked out of the ring and another rider started her test.  Once all the other riders went, it was time for the next class.

This time I was seventh in line to go, so I had to wait a while in the ring. I just sat on Kilo and let him drink water while I talked to my family. Then, finally, it was my turn again. This time I walked up on the outside of the ring so I would be closer to the entrance when I started, and Kilo would not stay still. Luckily, the bell rang pretty fast and I started my next test. Again, my center line was crooked. For some reason Kilo kept wiggling off to the side. Other than that and the fact that I cut some corners a little, I thought this test had gone a little better than the last one. Which actually makes sense, because now I was a little more used to Kilo and could control him better. My final trot down center line was really straight, and when I walked up to the judge again she complimented me on it which was nice. Again, she said that my overall pace was consistent but that my reins needed to be shorter even though they were better than in the previous test. Obviously I know how important that is now!

I exited the ring again and waited for  the other riders to do their tests. Then it was time for the equitation class. They split up our division into two groups, so that each group had about five riders in it. Basically, the judge would tell a guy standing next to her what she wanted us all to do, and he would call it out. It was really difficult to be in the ring with four other people. Even in my lessons it's hard. I kept getting really close to the back of someone's horse so I would turn around to avoid that and end up right behind another person's horse. I definitely didn't take as much care to those turns as I should have. Anyway, some of the commands were simple things like "walk" and "posting trot" and "change direction", but then the judge through in "two point", which was a little harder, but then she threw out "sitting trot" which completely caught me off guard. I've never even practiced that in a lesson before. Basically I sat down and tried my best not to bounce up and down too hard. And let me tell you, it takes a lot of thigh muscles to stay in a relatively stable position in a sitting trot. I was very happy when that was over, needless to say.

After a couple more commands we were told to line up, and then it was the next group's turn to go. Someone else was riding Kilo so I just stood off to the side while the went. When they were done, those of us who hadn't just ridden were told to go line up with the others, even if we didn't have a horse, so I walked to the center and awkwardly stood between two horses. Then it was time for ribbons to be given out. I tied with another girl for fourth place in the first class, which I was okay with, although I'm not going to say I wasn't a little disappointed. For the second class, I got a second place which I was very happy with. Then for the equitation I got another fourth place, which I wasn't too surprised about. At least I got a variety of colors to go with my blue ribbons at home. :) Overall, even though I didn't place as high as I would have liked, I was really happy with my performance on Kilo. Considering the fact that I hadn't ridden him in a while and how little practice time I got, I think we did pretty well. :)

Overall it was a good day, and I'm thankful to all my family members that came out to support me. I hope they enjoyed coming and I'm definitely hoping to participate again next year, hopefully with a little more practice beforehand.

Dressage Show Info and Preparation

Again, sorry for skipping the last couple of weeks. I honestly can't keep up with these posts, so I apologize for any future skips.

So the dressage show is this Saturday! I know, I haven't said anything about it this year... That's because a lot of things have changed this year. For one, I have a different instructor. I've also been having lessons with a lot of other people, as opposed to the private lessons I had last year. So this year I am way less prepared. I'm going to be riding Kilo for two of my classes, and a new horse named Cartwheel for one of them. I have literally ran through my tests three times each. Not a lot, I know. It's kind of stressing me out a little how unprepared I am... But like I said, things are a lot different this year. I haven't had the time to practice that much, and I don't get the same attention from my instructor any more. In the lesson I just came back from half an hour ago, there were five other people riding. So obviously, the instructor can't give all of us her attention, and she can't really let people run through their individual classes because then no one else would be able to practice.

The whole situation's a little chaotic in my opinion, and unfortunately I'm just going to have to do the best that I can on Saturday and hope for the best. I'm not trying to sound pessimistic, but because I'm pretty unprepared and haven't practiced that much, I don't expect to do as well as I did last year. Last year I had months of practice and a solid horse that I had been riding for a long time. This year, I've only been riding Kilo for a couple months, and I'm not completely comfortable with him yet. On top of that, I have to ride that new horse Cartwheel (who I've only ridden twice!) in my equitation class because Kilo's being ridden by somebody else. An equitation class is when all the people who rode their individual tests ride in the same ring while the judge calls out commands, such as "walk" or "trot". Anyway, like I said, I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much this year. At this point, I'd like to try and concentrate on just learning from this experience (as crazy as it's been) and having fun, rather than worrying about what ribbons I'm going to get. So I'm trying to turn this not-so-convenient situation into one I can learn from. I mean, it's no one's fault that it's turned out this way, it's just that so many people are participating this year and there's only so much the barn owner can do.

With all of that said, I really am grateful to the barn owner. She's helped me get two practice rides in this week (Sunday and Monday - I'm exhausted at this point!), and she's just been really understanding with me and I know she's trying her best to get everyone's situation worked out as best as she can.

Now I just kind of want to give you all some information about what I'll actually be doing at the show. I've signed up for one walk/trot division (it has three classes in it), and it starts at 2:15. I won't be cantering this year since I haven't really cantered on Kilo that much. But the first two tests are basically a pattern with some 20-meter circles and standard things like that. I actually haven't memorized them yet... I'm working on it though (not that it even matters since I'll have a reader to read the steps out loud). The third class, like I said, is the equitation class. That I'm a little nervous for, since I've never done one before and it'll be on the horse I've only ridden twice. Again, I'm trying to stay positive... Sorry if I seem a little down. I'm really tired from my lesson tonight, riding the past two days, and from school too. I might do a post later this week on the actual test patterns, but if not I'll definitely write about how the show goes (fingers crossed!). Wish me luck!

Lesson 4/3/12

I know, I know. I had no excuse for not posting last week or the week before. I was just too lazy to do it. Basically, on my lesson two weeks ago, I rode Fresca instead of Kilo, and last week I had to cancel because of a school group project I needed to work on.

A couple weeks ago the barn instructor talked to me about possibly switching my lesson day because she thought that I was getting a little lost in the Monday lesson. I agreed with her - there were so many people that I didn't feel like I was improving much at all. She told me that there was going to be a new lesson on Tuesdays at 6 with some girls more my age, which sounded a lot better. I asked my parents, who said yes, and so that's when my lessons are going to be for the month of April, at least.

When I got to the barn, there was only me and another girl's name on the "who's riding who" list, so that alone made me look forward to this a lesson a little bit more. When the girl arrived (whose name I forget...), I could see she was a couple years younger than me. I'd guess maybe 11 or so. Anyway, she got Fresca while I got Kilo ready. Kilo was actually very easy to work with today. He only tried to bite at me a couple times, but other than that he seemed relatively happy. When me and the other girl (who from now on is going to referred to as K because I feel like that was the first letter of her name) were both done tacking up, we headed up to the ring.

When we got up to the ring there were about four young girls from the previous lesson already up there. It looked pretty chaotic to me, and later the barn owner told me it was and how one girl didn't get to ride much because she had a new horse that turned out to be lame or something like that. I also learned that the barn owner would be teaching our lesson. For some reason this always makes me really nervous - I feel like I'm going embarrass myself or something. Of course, I always realize there's absolutely nothing to be nervous about. She is really nice and I actually like when she teaches.

Anyway, the younger girls left as soon as we started walking around our horses. When K and I were on our horses, we stayed in the little ring and worked on getting Fresca and Kilo to keep up a good-paced walk. To my surprise, Kilo didn't have trouble doing this at all. It took some nudging but once Kilo was in that fast walk he kept it up for the most part. K seemed to have some trouble getting Fresca to go, but I've ridden Fresca before so I know how she can be with that. After a while of this we picked up a posting trot and went around the ring a couple times. Then we were told to walk for one half of the ring, and trot the other half. On the half where we had to trot there were three poles on the ground that we had to go over. It's always a little bit scary going over poles, even if they're on the ground, because the horse either slows down or speeds up, and in Kilo's case, he speeds up. So I have to make sure to slow myself down going over the poles or I'll be bouncing all over the place.

After that we moved into the big ring (now the dressage ring).  At this point the barn owner's daughter came up with her horse, Dixie, and warmed up around the outside of the dressage ring. K and I worked at the trot and the barn owner told us that she noticed that both of us kind of use our feet when posting more than we should. This means that as we rise up out of the saddle we kind of push our feet forward, which isn't a very sturdy or correct position to be in. To help fix this, the barn owner told us to practice switching our diagonals on the upbeat at letters A, B, C, and E (see the dressage ring diagram from the previous post for reference). I feel like I've explained the upbeat before, but I'll do it again just so you all aren't confused. When posting, you kind of sit up and down, (although it's more of a forward and backward motion) and when you're up out of the saddle, that's the upbeat. So switching diagonals on the upbeat means you just stay up out of the saddle for two beats instead of one. If that makes any sense at all. After I do this a couple times I can get the hang of it. Switching on the upbeat pretty much forces you to have your feet sturdily in place and use only your legs to push yourself out of the saddle.

Next we got to work on cantering. We did the catch-up thing where we take turns going until we catch up to the next person in line (in this case, K, as there was only one other person in "line"). I went first. My first canter with Kilo was... okay. I got him into it easily, but then my position was off so he stopped cantering pretty soon. The barn owner told me that I needed to keep my legs in place or something along those line. When I tried again it worked a lot better. I honestly can't say I know exactly what I did differently, but whatever I did, it worked. Kilo kept up the canter. He not only cantered, but he raced around the ring to a point where I was a little scared he was going to run someone over. Even though he went really fast, it was still fun.

After K went a couple of times (she trotted mostly and only cantered about once), we moved to the outside of the dressage ring. The barn owner and I talked a little about the dressage show, and when she asked me what kind of classes I wanted to do, I told her I though it would be best if I only did walk/trot classes with Kilo since we hadn't cantered that much. She agreed with me that that would probably be the best idea. After that she read through one of the walk/trot test from the show (Test B, I think) and I did the actual test, just to practice. I was a little awkward and unsure doing it, but it didn't turn out too bad, I don't think. I definitely need to practice more before the show on April 21st (mark your calendars!). Overall though, I was really satisfied with this lesson and I'll update you all when I have more information about the show and the classes I'll be doing.

Lesson 3/5/12

20 meter circles

I'm very happy to say that this lesson was one of the best ones I've had in a long time. Kilo is finally - finally - starting to get better. He is still getting over his Lime disease, but this time in the barn he did not bite at me that much once I smacked him a couple times. He actually seemed relatively happy for once, and I could do all of the grooming and tacking up myself. At first I thought he was so much better because Chester wasn't in front of us (the lady who rides him wasn't there), but my instructor just said that it's most likely because he's healing. Anyway, I got up to the ring on time and without incident, which was a huge relief and pretty much set the stage for the rest of the lesson.

Tonight we practiced our 20 meter circles again. This time we learned there are actually three places that you can make one of these circles: one in the middle, and two on each end of the dressage ring (see picture - I added the circles!). The circles start at A, B, and C, which you can kind of see in the picture. We all practiced doing these circles at a trot, each of us starting at a different letter and completing the circuit - that is, doing a circle at A, trotting around the ring, doing a circle at B, and so on. It got a little tricky when we weren't evenly spaced out, so we had to slow down or speed up to avoid crashing into each other.

 In order to do the 20 meter circle correctly, you're supposed to be practically touching the side of the ring whenever you're near it. I have a hard time with this because I don't really try hard enough to get my horse closer to the side, so most of the time I end up cutting off the corner and making the circle smaller. I know I can get Kilo closer to the side, but I don't know, I usually just don't try hard enough. So next week one of my goals is to perfect my circles and actually make them the correct size.

After doing this circuit thing three whole times through - trust me, it was exhausting - we all got to canter. We again did the thing where we all get in a line and take turns cantering until we catch up to the next person. Before I went, my instructor told me to try asking for the canter on what is called the upbeat. When you're doing a posting trot, and sitting up and down, usually I ask for the canter when I sit down. For me it just seems easier because you can start sitting with the canter as soon as your horse switches gaits. But this time, she told me to ask when I was up in the saddle, turning from my center to get the correct bend, and to then start sitting to the canter. This confused me because I didn't see how that could possibly work, but I tried it anyway - and it didn't work. I actually got Kilo to canter, but I didn't sit soon enough once he started so he just went right back down to a trot. The next time, I asked for the canter in the upbeat and sat as soon as I felt Kilo change gaits. It actually made a lot of sense once I did it. The transition was actually a lot smoother as it didn't involve the bouncy sitting trot that I usually do beforehand. After I got the canter I continued down the long side before I stopped. My instructor said that it looked really good, and I was very happy with it too. Luckily, that's where the lesson ended. I'm hoping next week's lesson will be even better and Kilo will be almost back to normal!

Before I end this post, I just wanted to mention something sad I heard the two other riders talking about. The guy who rides with us used to have a horse named Sky, until very recently when he had to be put down. From what I heard, he had something wrong with his digestive system and couldn't eat properly. I was very sad to hear this, because I remember seeing Sky at the barn every Sunday when I work for as long as I've worked there. The day before my lesson, when I found out about this, Sky actually wasn't in the paddock with Moo (the guy' s brother's horse) when I came to feed them. I thought it was weird, and just assumed he was somewhere else for the time being. Moo also had seemed kind of upset - he was kind of walking all over and seemed to want my attention more than usual. As soon as I heard the guy say that, it all made sense. It's a very sad thing, but I thought you all should know. My thoughts are with Sky's owner. Rest in peace, Sky.

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.

Lesson 2/13/12

Tonight when I got to the barn, next to my name on the list was a blank. I went up to the riding ring and my instructor said that I should continue riding Kilo, since it would be easier for now. Because of the snow, we could only use the small ring, so it was just easier to ride a horse that I already knew a little bit about.

 Anyway, by the time I went back down to the barn I was a little bit behind everyone else in the tacking up process, so I tried to go faster. Of course, Kilo was being grumpy as usual and kept trying to bite me whenever I even looked at him the wrong way. I just had to do everything really slowly and carefully, and when my instructor came down from her previous lesson she helped me. She basically has to do the whole saddle part because Kilo gets extra bite-y near his legs and stomach, which I'm fine with. She told me that if you just watch Kilo's head the whole time, he won't bite as much since he thinks he's going to get caught (which he will).

Once in the ring, I realized it was going to be very tricky to navigate in such a small area with four other horses and riders. It was hard to try and walk at a good pace without getting too close to another horse. After a while we were all spaced out pretty good, and when we started the figure-eights it was easier because we could turn in different directions at the intersection. After warming-up our instructor had us do an exercise where we would ask our horses to walk faster on one long side of the ring, then just relax until we came to that long side again. All of our horses were pretty happy with this exercise. The one horse, Chester, who had spooked last week, was the calmest I'd ever seen him. All of the horses looked so relaxed and it was relaxing for me too.

After a while, we did the same sort of exercise except this time, when we came to the one long side we had to ask our horses to walk almost fast enough to trot, but then relax right before they actually trotted. Kilo did surprisingly well with this - he was actually listening to me and doing what I asked. After we did that exercise, we did the same thing but with trotting. Then we just had to trot until we caught up with the horse in front of us, so basically taking turns. Kilo was very responsive with this as well.

As I said before, I was really happy with Kilo tonight, other than the issues he had while tacking up. He didn't even do a huge stumble like he's done the past two weeks! Overall it was a good lesson, and I'm definitely looking forward to next week's.

Also, something I didn't mention earlier was that one of the horses in the lesson was apparently sick. He's a new horse, so I hadn't seen him before, and I don't even think he had a name. Anyway, they said he might have had something called strangles, which is apparently contagious because when I was leaving my lesson horses were being moved so their stalls could be disinfected and things like that. One of the ladies who rode with me was going to another barn afterwards, and she had to change her gloves and wash her hands really good to avoid spreading the sickness. Just thought that was an interesting side note!

Lesson 2/6/12

It was a really nice day when I rode - it was sunny and not very cold. I rode Kilo again at 5:30, as that is the time I'll be riding at for the time being. As soon as a hooked Kilo up to the cross-ties in the barn though, he started to turn his head to try and bite me. He wouldn't even let me get near him without pinning his ears and biting. Eventually my instructor had to hold his head to make him stop doing that, which was annoying because I hate when I have to have someone help me with something like that. Anyway, after Kilo stopped biting I finished grooming and tack him up.

For me, this lesson wasn't very strenuous. A lot of my instructor's attention was on the other two riders, which is the downside of a group lesson. I pretty much did my own thing except when all of us were instructed to figure-eight or trot or something. So after some warm-up circles, we did some half halts, and I tried to work on getting Kilo to move faster. Even though I had a crop with me it was really difficult to get him to pick up the pace. 

After a while, we started to trot a figure-eight. Our instructor taught us a way to try and get our horses to bend around the circles, which was by leaning slightly on the side that we wanted or horses to bend into. For example, if I wanted Kilo to bend to the inside, I would lean a little bit on my inside foot while turning from my center at the same time. It actually worked a couple times, but it was hard to get Kilo to do that when I was more focused on getting him to actually move at a good pace. Towards the end of the lesson I had to smack him on the shoulder just to get him to trot at all. That sounds harsh, but I was doing everything I could to make him trot and he just wouldn't, so I kind of needed to.

A problem I, and my instructor, have noticed is that Kilo stumbles a lot. He actually did this last week too, but in this lesson when I was trying to get him to trot Kilo's knees just sort of buckled under him, making him fall a little bit. It was really scary, as it felt like I was going to be rolled on by this huge animal! Luckily though, he got his footing and was up again fairly quickly, but after that I just stopped walking for a while. My instructor looked concerned and I was a little freaked too, because who wants a horse start falling and possibly squish them?

Soon after this happened, another rider was having problems with her horse, Chester. He was being difficult before I think, and I'm not exactly sure the details but Chester started to spook for some reason, going into a sort of canter and lifting his head up really high. He was moving towards Chachi, who of course also started to spook a little, but luckily the instructor was there to stand in front of Chester and calm him down a little. I was surprised how little Kilo was affected - we were literally just standing there watching this happen, and he didn't even shift or anything! I was grateful for that though, obviously. Three horses spooking at once would have been very bad news.

Once the spooking was over and done with, all of us got to trot a little bit longer just to end the lesson. I was actually shivering by the end because I had barely done any trotting. Despite all the problems though, it was still a pretty good lesson, and hopefully we can resolve Kilo's biting and stumbling issues next week!

Lesson 1/30/12

After my lesson being cancelled last week, I was very eager to ride last night. I rode Kilo again, but this week my lesson was at 5:30 because my instructor has been trying to combine lessons to make it easier. So it was darker and colder when I rode, but it actually wasn't that bad. This week I rode with three other people, one of which is actually one of the girls who rode a lesson I used to volunteer at.

Also new this week was that I had to put a breastplate (see the picture) on Kilo. It's used to keep the saddle in place on the horse's back and to prevent it from sliding backward. Basically you put on the saddle and the girth, thread the bottom loop of the breastplate through the girth (between the horse's two front legs), and clip the top two clips to the saddle. Hopefully you can see that a little in the picture.

Since there were so many people in the lesson, I basically got to do my own thing to warm up. I just did some circles and basically went where there weren't other people riding. After a while our instructor told us to do a three-loop serpentine, just looping around the ring in a figure-eight sort of motion. It was a little tricky to do this without running into other horses, so a lot of the time we had to loop back or cut across the ring.

After about four full serpentines around the ring, we were told to trot. I got Kilo to trot fairly easily, and he actually went along at a nice pace for the majority of the time. The only time it got hard to keep Kilo trotting was where the ground was especially hard and frozen. At those spots he would slow down and I would have to just push him along until he went faster. For a while I was actually the only one trotting, because the other horses kept having problems for some reason. Of course, then I started to have problems.

After trotting so nicely for so long, Kilo just kind of stopped trotting, and he would not pick up another trot. I wiggled my legs, a nudged him, and then finally kicked him a little, and he still would not trot. Eventually my instructor noticed and gave me a crop to use, which got Kilo into a trot soon after. For the rest of the time Kilo and I trotted comfortably (at least I did) until the end of the lesson. Down at the barn the instructor said that my ride was very nice, and I have to say I agree. What I mean by that is it felt really good to ride after missing a week, and I felt like I accomplished a lot and got more comfortable trotting on Kilo.

Lesson 1/9/12

I rode Kilo again today. He was pretty much the same as last week - trying to bite me, kicking out, the usual. My instructor was there this time to help me with it though, and she actually ended up putting on Kilo's bridle and finishing up for me, which I was fine with. I just wanted to get up in the ring before 4:30.

When we were up in the ring, Kilo again would not stand still. My instructor had to hold him for me while I tightened the girth. At this point I think I was ready to do something on my own, as my instructor had helped me with almost everything else. There was also a new horse up in the ring, a beautiful one that I think might have been a dun (coat color), so Kilo was very interested in him. This also made him not want to stay still.

Anyway, I warmed up like last week, just doing big circles in the corners of the ring. I again practiced making Kilo go faster using my seat, and I practiced steering from my center a little bit. Once the new horse left, Kilo got very upset. He kept turning towards him and neighing, which was a little irritating, but after a while he calmed down enough for me to trot. I trotted in a small figure-eight at one end of the ring so my instructor could help me more.

Kilo unfortunately kept trying to turn towards the gate, so I had to do some hard steering. I was doing it wrong though - my instructor told me that I needed to keep pressure on both reins, inside and outside, because otherwise Kilo would just turn his head and not his shoulder. Once I tried that a couple times it was a lot easier, and I was able to keep Kilo on track, for the most part.

Other than that, my lesson was pretty uneventful. Satisfying, but uneventful. It was a very good lesson though, and I got in some good circles at the walk and a good trot at the figure-eight. When I was down at the barn putting stuff away the barn owner, who had been up in the ring watching for a while, told me that I looked very nice doing the circles, and later my instructor told me that my trot was really good, so I was glad the lesson had turned out the way it did. Next week, my instructor said my lesson should be even better because this one was better than last week's, so I am now excited for my lesson next Monday. :)

Lesson 1/2/12

First lesson of 2012! :)

When I arrived at the barn and saw the list of who was riding who, under my name it had three horses: Kilo, Captain, or Daisy. I talked to my instructor, and since Daisy was in a lesson at that time I had to choose between Kilo or Captain. My instructor sounded like she wanted me to ride Kilo, and he seemed like a cool horse so I chose to ride him. Unfortunately he has rain rot, which is some kind of skin disease (click the link to read more). Because he has this it makes him really sensitive to being touched anywhere he has it, so grooming was pretty difficult. Every time I even went near Kilo with a brush he tried to bite me. I just put my hand on him and waited till he stopped before I brushed him. I was extra cautious around his back legs, which he tried to kick me with, and I skipped picking his back hooves altogether.

Once up in the ring, I got on Kilo and I don't know if it was just me, but he felt really tall for some reason. I thought it might be because I hadn't ridden the week before or something. But anyway, I got used to Kilo's walk a little by walking in big circles and I practiced adding in energy by exaggerating my seat movements (I don't know if that makes any sense to you guys at all). That worked pretty well, so we moved onto trotting.

My instructor had me try and get Kilo to trot by just exaggerating my seat movements a lot, but that didn't work very well so she had me add in some leg pressure as well, alternately squeezing my legs. This worked fairly quickly, so I just trotted around the ring a few times, still going in big circles. Then my instructor told me to just sit the trot, without posting, and to give leg pressure until Kilo pushes me into posting, rather than me doing all the work. This probably sounds confusing, but what she was looking for was enough energy for me to actually be sort of forced out of the saddle. It took a little while to get the hang of this, but once I felt Kilo actually do that, it made a huge difference.

I basically practiced that for the majority of the lesson, so by the end my legs were killing me from doing so much sitting trot. After that my instructor had me trot one big circle, and then cut the corner of the ring as I came out of that circle. Then I had to use my inside leg and post diagonally to push Kilo over to the outside of the ring, which worked a couple of times. My instructor had me do this because she said it helped Kilo prepare himself for a canter, which is what I did next. I did the same thing as before - I trotted a circle, and as I came out of the circle I pushed Kilo over to the outside. This time though I asked him to canter as soon as he was on the outside of the ring. He cantered almost immediately, and I found that I actually liked his canter! I did that maybe two more times, and that was the end of the lesson.

Overall it was a very satisfying lesson, especially compared to the slightly disastrous one that I'd had two weeks before. And I was very happy to canter again after so long!