November 25, 2019 Group Lesson under the direction of Erin Patterson
Cloverleaf pattern with poles in a small arena is hell with a fast cantering horse. The turns are very tight and then there are those nasty poles in the way. It takes some nimble foot work to accomplish this pattern at a fast canter. Fancy has yet to perfect a slow canter. Why go slow when you can go fast. That is also my guiding light life principle. Fancy and I are so alike. sigh
Fancy is suspicious of me now changing direction and asking for lead changes. (My lead change attempts look nothing like this YouTube.)
There are no changes of direction on this pattern. On one of those tight turns, she changed her leading back leg to a following back leg. The new leading leg made a fast giant leap up and forward. Since I’m attached to Fancy, my body was adversely affected. Fancy’s rear end went up. My body was slung upwards. My vocal chords screamed at the shock. Amazingly, my body reattached to Fancy and I was still in the saddle. (I love this saddle!). Now her front legs were doing a different canter from her back legs. In the saddle it feels like you are an untrained trick rider on two different horses. It also feels like Fancy is going to fall as her balance has just gone to hell. Yep…hell. I asked her to exit from the canter. I think my screaming brain wanted Fancy to stop so it could check to see if blood was still being directed from my heart. My heart was still beating. Hurray!
During our last turn at doing the Cloverleaf, Fancy maintained the canter for one entire four circle, tight turn process. Erin screamed in joy. I thought she said something like “You did Hell great.” She said it twice. I was thrilled at that amazing compliment. After it was over, I asked for her exact Hell compliment. This is my very first hell compliment. I wanted to get the exact words written down for eternity!
Sadly, what she had screamed twice in excited joy was, “You HELD the lead! Fancy HELD the lead!” Sigh…. Erin never swears.
Cloverleaf cantering is a hell of a lot of fun and I’m alive! Yee Haw!