Todays Adventures!

Well, today was a pretty good day as far as riding goes. I got to the barn around 9:30, where I met up with my friend Madi. She's the one who has been hanging out with Gambler on Saturdays, and giving him his UlcerGuard. She's only ridden him once before, but the main goal of her going out on Saturdays was to ride him then. Anyhow, since we're pretty much at the end of the super intense ulcer treatment, I figured now is as good a time as any to give her a mini lesson on him, and give her the essential knowledge so that she can start riding him again on Saturdays.

Luckily for us, the horses were close to the fence, so catching Gambler was a piece of cake. Tacking up was a whole other story. I don't know what his deal was today, but he was so dweeby on the ground. First he was just being weird about ground tying, which is really out of character for him. Usually I can even leave the barn and he'll stand still, but today he kept wanting to follow me. Anyhow, once we got through grooming, which took way longer than usual, we started tacking up. Again, he was on a whole other planet. We tacked up in the stall because I didn't want to deal with his dweebiness in the aisle, but he was still just spazzy and all over the place. Whatever, we all have our days I guess. On the way down to the ring, he spooked which is also pretty out of character. He was just kind of all over the place.

Madi riding Gambler

I did some quick lunging with him, which he's usually perfect about. Not today. I don't know what his deal was. I think part of it was that he was feeding off of some negative energy that I was unconsciously giving off.

Aren't they cute together? 

Anyhow, after he chilled out, Madi got on. I wanted to just get a sense of how she rides him, and I was actually very pleasantly surprised. Then I sort of taught her how to work on bending with him, and they both responded very nicely to that.

Madi is a very good horse person, who I've respected from day one of knowing her. We met at Rock Creek last year, when I was helping with a beginner lesson on Fridays that she taught. She's awesome and an amazing friend. Not to mention that she works really well with Gambler, and they're really cute together.

Madi rode for about a half hour, and then I got on. First of all, let's take a moment to appreciate how freaking awesome my horse was for the mounting block for both me and Madi! Hooray!

Photographic evidence we can trot through the corners like a normal horse!

Anyways, I got on and he was just being so freaking perfect. Gosh, I just love that horse. We worked a lot on bending down on the other half of the ring that he was being weird about last week, and he was doing great. We also worked a lot on transitions, so we'd trot half the long side of the ring, halt in the center, trot the other half, walk the short side, stuff like that. His transitions are getting to be really awesome! Anyhow, I was originally planning on just working on small circles and such in the two hard corners, but we actually even trotted them! He's doing so well, and makes me so gosh darn proud. :D

Strut!

He's also getting way better going off of my leg. Last week he was being really dull to my leg and I literally had to keep my leg on him all ride, but today he was much better! That boy can trot... Seriously! He was even stretching out better than ever today, which has not been my priority with him lately, but it was awesome to see. I can't wait to see as he gets more muscle how his movement continues to improve!

We even had a bit of an accidental canter when I put my outside leg a tad too far back to support him through a turn. Can we appreciate the fact that my green bean pony who had his first two rides with cantering last week after two months of not cantering picked up the canter because I accidentally put my outside leg too far back? Holy crap... Talk about understanding really refined cues! Dang. Anyhow, I just went with it and then we did a tad more cantering. He is becoming such a pro!

I unfortunately don't have a lesson this week because I have to work out with the PT Wednesday due to scheduling craziness... But Sarah will still ride him. I think I'll do more canter work with him starting tomorrow.

All in all, I'm very pleased with my ride today. :) This horse is way too good for me, and despite the fact that I apparently can't ride to save my life (*cough* position *cough*) he still manages to be a saint. Love him so much.

After riding Gambler, I got Lyric out and rode her for about a half hour. It was the first ride that I felt like I had consistently good positon in the dressage saddle and also a fairly good contact/frame the whole time. I was very pleased with that and how she was going in general. She was getting really forehand-y going to the right so we worked on that, and also worked on our strange fear of the gate... Because obviously it is a horse eating monster and we need to spook at it every time we walk or trot by, right?! I was going to do some canter work with her but it started to rain and I had to feed anyways.

It was my first time doing feed all by myself and it was a little hectic, but I figured things out. :S I can't wait to ride Gambler tomorrow and maybe even go in the field!

Now that I have sufficiently procrastinated on my Once and Future King reading for tomorrow, I guess I should go find something else to do. :D