First weekend

Well, I made it through the first weekend full of lessons and riding! :)

I got to meet a bunch of you and in some cases, your horses too. I think everything went great, minus the cold! I am hoping for some warmer weather very, very soon.

I didn't get to ride any of the projects on Saturday since we had a booked solid day of lessons from 9-5! On Sunday I rode our new friend Buzz for the first time. He is a kick on kind of ride, has a nice walk and trot but you really have to work for his canter. He trotted over a little cross rail and some ground poles, but doesn't seem to know too much about what jumping is all about, the important thing is that he's willing.  I'll be schooling him and getting him moving in the next few weeks. He needs his teeth done and then hopefully we'll be integrating him in to the lesson schedule sometime soon!

 Next, I got on Gracie. This was my third ride on her (more then any of the others so far!). I get the feeling she was a western pony before she came to Knights Landing. She seems very stiff through the body and doesn't know about bending at all. She is however, pretty honest and has a nice trot, pretty decent transitions and a good stop. She popped over a few little cross rails and we are working on getting a better canter transition. She also has a good stop when you say "whoa" and prefers a light contact with the bit. Also needs her teeth done and then we'll see what she gives us in the next month or so.

Had my second ride on Oliver. I just changed his bit to something a bit stronger to see if this would enable us to be able to put him to use in lessons. I think this did the trick and he'll hopefully be on the schedule in the next weeks! He is a pretty cool dude. Nice walk and trot, gets a little strong at the canter but not fast and has good transitions. He is a fantastic little jumper. I had a lot of fun schooling him around everything in the ring. I will continue to school him in a snaffle to try to get him using himself correctly and hopefully we can go back to a snaffle for lessons in the future. I think he's going to be a lot of fun!

Toward the end of the day, Doug and I got together to look over Callies tack and then I had a nice ride on her. She really likes a nice soft contact with quiet hands and seat. We worked on transitions and lengthening/shortening her stride within the trot. Her transition down to halt got better from all gaits throughout the ride. Near the end of the ride she really started to frame up and settle in. She is actually quite nice and is definitely coming along!

We'll see how the weather cooperates the rest of this week, hopefully we get minimal snow!