A return to old habits

Wot an embarrassing lack of horsular posts lately. I haven't been riding quite as much, having decided not to re-up on the Western front for this semester. There are two main frustrations that drove that call. One is that the teacher and I are too much alike, and we end up amplifying one anothers' worst traits, in some kind of negative phase amplification that in a Star Trek universe would call for serious pursed-lips engineering fixing in the episode's fifty-fifth minute. The other is that none of the barn's school horses are dedicated Western horses, so their work is inconsistent and can be frustrating.

Dressage, though, is where I continue with the dorky levels of enthusiasm. At the last session, I went out on a limb and tried Dylan, the barn's dark little Connemara pony. He's still scared of one end of the ring (the haunted end, of course) but is otherwise an admirable creature, and why not try as many partners as possible? I got over the strangeness of how short he was, the lil lowrider, and found that we didn't do too badly together. Early in the lesson he indulged in a brief leaping spook at the evil corner, skittering sideways and then cantering several strides back up the ring, but it was almost...comfortable. I could feel the scare coming, the jump went where I'd expected, the canter was easy, and he calmed back down in time for me to take him back through that corner and show him that it wasn't going to eat him. He reserved the right to prick his ears at it for the rest of the lesson, but he never freaked out again.

We had our second little scramble when we worked on trot-to-canter transitions. He resisted the upward shift, so I squeezed again and added a tap with the dressage whip. He objected vehemently, leaping into a kick that took both hind feet off the ground, but again, there was no problem riding it, and he settled back down to a smooth easy canter with good transitions. All discussions should be so quickly resolved.

I will never be one of those fearless little barn rats who'll get on anything with hooves and can cling to the saddle as though they'd been glued in place while a horse tries to samba in the front and cha-cha in the back. But thanks to Cappi, and Lear, and even Mr. Smouti (a duck flushing from a stream would startle anyone), I'm starting to learn to sit out the easier bolts and frights. Have insurance; will ride.