Equestrian Summer

So I haven't been doing regular posts like I did during the school year about my lessons with the team, partially because I've been focusing more on training.

Oh and by the way, those dressage dreams are over until I can buy a Warmblood. Apparently, you will lose a Paso's gait if you teach them dressage. What I don't understand is why the woman wrote the book on "Classical Training for the Paso Fino" if she says right in the introduction that Pasos and other gaited breeds aren't very successful with dressage. Uhmmmm kay?

Let's see. A summary of my summer.
I rode Cameo a whole bunch. From her, I learned how to keep a horse from refusing a jump.

I rode General once. I wasn't too keen on riding him when I did because his hoof looked nasty, and I told Nell that, but he was an okay ride. Very bouncy trot. From him, I learned to not work at posting and that you just have to go with the rhythm of the horse. The horse will propel you and you don't need to work your inner thighs all too much to post. Also, I learned that posting should not appear to go up and down, but rather rock back and forth.

I rode a Saddlebred/Arab cross, Dutchess, twice. From her, I learned that it is absolutely necessary to time your jumps and lift yourself up while in the air, otherwise you could possibly fall off. I also learned from her that you NEED to keep your heels down. I didn't and lost my stirrup almost every time over a jump. Thankfully, I managed to stay on. "If I go down, you're going down with me."

Today, my last lesson of the summer, I rode Two Socks. I only rode him once before when I was learning diagonals because, conveniently, he has two socks on the left side of his body.
Oh boy. I need to get a stronger leg, that's what I learned from him! I thought I had it after my adventures with Jimmy, but apparently not. My mom said she never saw a horse come away from a jump trotting...well today she did, that's how slow he was going. I thought that his trot was very nice on the flat, but apparently his "breakneck speed was that of death". I have to see if I can use spurs in the IHSA shows, because personally I find crops too hard to deal with. And with today's performance, I'm pretty sure that my next lesson will land me on Jimmy again. Fantastic.

I've already started lesson coordination. I even made a neat little form to send out as an email that will automatically fill into a spreadsheet. I'm kind of an organization nut like that. And I already have my lesson during the fall quarter in mind and pretty much secured. I'll only get one practice in before the show, but it's not like I'm going to be jumping at these shows. The points for this system are ridiculously hard! They make it so hard to point up in a year, and I'm only doing three shows. Even if I take first in all my classes, I'm still pretty sure I won't have enough points to jump next year. Oh, the frustration. So all my goal is to beat my NIU rival.

I'm all set with my show clothes. I bought a lovely new coat, all black, with gold buttons and velvet collar. My mom's was too small. Can you believe it! My mom was even skinnier than I am when she was younger! I have to vacuum myself a bit into her white breeches, but they look good, especially with her show shirt. Thank goodness it's no-sleeved. I have a beautiful pin for my ratcatcher and I tried on her tall boots today which fit perfectly. All I have to do is bring them to the shoemaker's to repair the sole a little bit, possibly add some traction to the bottoms because I kept loosing my stirrup again today, even though my heels were down.

I won't be out to train tomorrow. I have to work that football game. Go Wildcats!

Equestrian Team Day 13 - Last Lesson of the 09-10 School Year

What an interesting day.
Best news: Our directions from last week work perfectly!! We even found an alternate this week (a happy mistake) by getting off the highway at the wrong point. Excellent! Definitely emailing those to the team next year. I don't know what route they take, but we know for a fact that this one works and is TomTom GPS approved!
Really though, I don't understand why they didn't have directions for a route that worked on the website.

I got to ride my favorite horse today, Cameo. *love* All I could think of while I was riding her was one word:

GLORIOUS!

A fantastic ride. I love the smoothness of her trot and the quickstep in her canter. I'm in love with that horse. I'm also happy to announce that my jumping courses are getting more complex! Ha, and complex meaning I get to jump two jumps instead of one. Last week I jumped two in a row; this week she had me do a little pattern.
Oh Cameo. Wonderful flat horse, but she loves to test what she can get away with on the course. No problem for me. I've lived through Brie, there was no way I was letting this horse get away with anything.
Yeah okay. She refused the first time I wanted to trot over the tiny X jump. So I already had it in my brain to make her go back and do it again multiple times before Nell told me to do that. She was perfect after that. I, on the other hand, didn't get comfortable jumping over with her until the last one, which felt amazing. Note to self: Don't look at the floor! It throws off your balance as you jump!

So as a "present" to us before we left, Nell let us ride an extra horse. Yay! Until I found out I had to ride Jimmy. Oh Jimmy. Remember when I was learning how to use a crop? I used it with Jimmy because he's so damn slow! I tried to go into this being confidant, talked to him as I tacked up telling him that he was not allowed to pull any crap on me while I was riding my final ride there fore the summer. In response he tried to bite me. No worries. I was determined to make this horse trot without kicking him and by simply pressing my heels into his side.

Well I accomplished that! It kind of went downhill from there. It was drizzling and while Jimmy and Kara's horse were fine, the filly in the pasture was extremely happy and started galloping and bucking around. This excited Jimmy. As we trotted past, he jumped up in the air. In my brain, it looked something like this:
I'm sure it was actually a buck. I wouldn't know: I've never been bucked before. Point is, I didn't fall off and wanted to walk back around to try to tell him that bucking in that corner was not acceptable.

Didn't happen. Instead:
I didn't fall off thought! Yessss.
Yeah. I figured at that point that training this old coot to stop bucking at the sight of a filly bucking was not my problem: I wasn't being hired to train, wasn't concerned with training this horse, and wasn't about to risk paralysis for a 20 minute "treat ride". After all, it was such a longer fall than from a Paso Fino. So I just walked the upper, non-pasture half of the arena while Kara rode her horse around quite pleasantly.

I hope I never have to ride Jimmy again. We don't mesh well and I don't think it's worth it for me to deal with a "difficult horse" when in the long run, if I end up doing anything with horses, it'll be as a Paso trainer who will never have to kick my horse unless I'm asking for a death wish. I know how to handle difficult horses. I just wish that Nell would understand that I'm not a complete horse idiot and when I say I train Pasos, I don't mean I sit on them and listen to a trainer telling me what to do. I train them. Straight up.

Summer's so close, I can taste it. Maybe this summer when I get a job, it will go towards a special "Lexa's future Nissan Altima/Ford F-150" fund. If I save from this summer and next summer, I should be able to buy it by junior year when I live off campus. That way I can drive out and visit Brie, Nina, and Harry whenever I want to!

Equestrian Team Day 10 and Day 57

Thursday, 4/29

I had probably the best ride today that I've had so far with the team. I had a "more advanced horse" (puhlease) named Cameo. I don't understand why people think mares are so difficult. Actually, scratch that, they are, but I get along quite well with them. Girl power! Ha. So she was pretty short, about the same height as Brie. Apparently she likes to go super fast and refuses jumps. Well I was not about to let her have me fly over her head when she refused a jump, so I made sure to keep my leg on her when we approached jumps. She didn't pull at all. It was great! I got compliments from the trainer and felt overall proud of myself.

Sunday, 5/2

I didn't get to go out yesterday because I had to go to my cousin's communion. I went out today though. I asked Paco to teach me how to lunge Harry so he wouldn't get really excited before I rode him. Paco lunged him for about 20 minutes.
He rode the best that he's ridden since February. It was fantastic. Paco even rode him and I'm really happy that he did because he hasn't been able to since Ray got back in February. I got the chance to watch Nina today. She looked amazing! Her headset is so collected. I only wonder if she'll go back to being Fino. I feel kind of disappointed. I know that you can't make a horse be Fino. But she was at one point. So should I try to push her or not?
I rode Brie today too. She was SO AMAZING, no lie. I'm so excited to show her. I felt a little bad that my mom didn't get to ride. I also felt kind of bad that I tried to canter her. She went berzerk the first time I went around. I don't think I'll do that anymore. I think she was really happy how she was before she cantered and I felt kind of bad after she got all wound up after she cantered. I hope she forgets about that and continues being really good next week.
I also rode Taco today. He was verrrrry uppity because no one's ridden him since I rode him two weeks ago. Oye vey. Energetic horses.