Out of Shape

Ugh, I am so out of shape. I've been good about riding consistently recently, but I haven't done anything in my jump saddle, much last jumped, in the past month. I'm taking a Physical Activity Course (PAC) class that's required at my school and it's kicking my butt. Then deciding to maximize my amount of pain, I decided to ride in my jump saddle and do some two point practice.

I hurt all over.

Plus, my ride on Jetta was just a super bummer. She started out fairly good, it was mostly just me. I felt out of balance and insecure in the saddle which is mostly a result of how little I've been riding in it, but also the fact that I want a different style of saddle. And any of the saddles I want are in the $3000 range, sigh.

Anyways, since Jetta's becoming more balanced in her canter and will occasionally do a clean flying change, I decided to ask her to do one just to see if she would. Mistake. Jetta got very upset and was tearing around the arena on the wrong lead. Lovely. It took a while to settle her down and get back to a nice-ish canter again, but it made our ride more tense and not as nice as it started out.
 
We took a walk break to regroup and ended on a good note, but it just made me realize we have sooooo much work. I really need to figure out some sort of lesson plan. The KO lesson I was looking forward to on the 20th got canceled (OMG PEOPLE QUIT CANCELLING THINGS!) and the trainer at my barn I don't really like her methods so I'm scared to ask her for a jumping lesson... I think I'm going to call up the trainer at another barn somewhat close by and see what she charges for a lesson. I've taken a lesson with her before at an eventing clinic and while it wasn't an amazing lesson, it was really good practice for us, I didn't disagree with anything she said and it was challenging. Then the main part is just taking the time to set up jumps at least once a week and practice. I need to get back to doing some a ton of two point!

fresh arena

With Queenie, she has been good. I love having a project horse because ever ride you can see visible improvement in leaps and bounds.

I turned Jetta out in the arena while I rode Queenie the other day because I didn't have the time to ride both of them. Plus it was good practice for Queenie to be in the arena with another crazy horse. Every so often Jetta would take off running and bucking for no good reason. Plus she would follow us around, ride up on Queenie's butt and cut us off, so it was good practice for riding in a warm up arena, lol. We had one big spook, but mostly Queenie just had her cutest alarmed face on. It's kinda adorable.

Heyyy pretty lady

Jetta was in major heat so she would trot up in front of us, then stop and position her butt towards Queenie. Sorry girl, wrong gender though.