That Canter!

The ring was super busy tonight -apparently everyone who's anyone rides on Wednesday nights. Finally, I'm one of the cool kids ;) Tonight, my ride was Pedro:

Are we getting tired of terrible quality cross tie pictures yet? I need G to come out and take some proper pics! 

Our group was quite large, with a couple of people making up missed lessons from other days in the week. There were also quite a few boarders out riding. The outdoor ring is huge, so not really a big deal.  It's fun to have so many people out riding, and a bit of a learning experience to watch others ride, particularly on the horses I also sometimes ride. 

Pedro himself was a star, just like the last time. He's a real cutie, so affectionate and funny. He's also quite a big mover, so it's fun to play with sitting that trot nicely. I messed up my back a little last year with that fall I had, and even though it's been been fine for at least a couple of months now, I think I must still ride like it hurts because I feel like I'm keeping my lower back and shoulders quite stiff. Pedro's ginormous bouncy trot forces me to get my shoulders back and sit deeper with a more relaxed lower back. It's always nice to have some horsey help getting that proper 'feel' again. He's also well versed in the concept of bending and leg yields, which is a bit of a treat after the wooden board that is Splash :)

The special treat with Pedro is his canter. It's that uphill, beautiful, confidence inspiring canter I always wished I had in my own horses. He's a retired show jumper, and it still shows in that canter. I can only imagine the hours and hours of schooling that went into creating it. Of course, me being me, I find his size/stride somewhat intimidating when it comes to jumps, but he was a good boy and packed me through a small course and a gymnastic line of 4 one strides. Since we had some of the less experienced riders with us tonight, the jumps were all just little x's and the exercise for us was more about accuracy and tight turns than the jumps themselves. Sadly, Mr Pedro caught himself and twisted a shoe part way through our course so we were relegated to watching the last part of the lesson. As mentioned though, I learned a lot watching the others ride. Splash is seriously a saint of a pony, happily taking a nervous little girl through it all at the slowest trot possible - none of that racing around having a good time like he likes to do with me. I want to take him home! Checkers did her patented giant hunter jumps through the gymnastic, and unfortunately one of the girls got jumped out of the tack and had a fall. Again, saint of a horse immediately stopped and patiently waited for her rider. She got right back on and rode it perfectly through the next time, so no harm done. It's nice in a way to see I'm not the only one that has trouble with that big jump! All in all, a good night had by all - it's nice after a long, stressful day at work to have a bit of a barn community to relax with.