Thank you Jennifer Vaught for the great lesson and the fun time riding with great friends. Great friends, a great teacher and great horses. The greats pile up!
We rode slow with occasional times of speed and many rest periods. We didn’t want sweat.
OK, most of the four hours wasn’t outdoors. Most of it was in an indoor arena. Someone did forget to turn on the furnace. I left home at 11:30 and came back at 4:00. The lesson was from 1:00-3:00, but it always runs longer. We did toast up in the indoor lounge after the group lesson, but most of the time I was without heat.
I discovered, once again, that I can ride in the winter. I remember discovering this fact every year. It gets to be winter and I always assume, I can only survive in my lounge chair.
But then magically, I’m forced to ride and discover…I can survive!
On the flip side, the other half of the partnership was convinced that she would die. In the last part of the lesson, we had to canter. We cantered quite a bit and had an ongoing argument.
NOVA “I can’t breathe! I must stop and I must stop NOW! Are you kidding me? You haven’t exercised me for 3 weeks and now you want to run me into the ground? NO! I am going to balk! Why don’t you ride Velvet, not me?”
Susan “Only for a little while longer. You can do it. Don’t die on me. Keep cantering. Stop arguing with me. If you would just canter nicely, we could stop! Velvet lived thru this, it’s your turn now.”
Nova was so tired at the end of the lesson, that she couldn’t walk to the exit gate. Her saddle was loose. Her bridle was off. She balked twice while I was leading her to the gate.
Nova is a dominant-argumentative- only-child mare.
We’ll be riding a lot more winter nights now. No more recliner chair! Well, let’s say, “less recliner chair nights”.
Love it! Only child mare… we know about that – dont we Susan..? Argumentative girls.. love em..
They are the best! It’s not boring!