Getting Back On

EC set a deceptively difficult course for us last night. The biggest fence was maybe 2'6", with the majority I'm guessing set somewhere in the 2'-2'3" range. It looked pretty unintimidating, to the point where I was wondering what I had done wrong to be back jumping the baby courses. It turns out the difficulty is in the details. Rather than the track I thought we might follow, ours featured rollbacks and bendy lines, and she complicated it further by asking for one fence to be a trot fence, and one of the bending lines to be a one stride going one direction, and a two stride going the other.

MSPaint kind of letting me down here, but I spent time on this therefore must use it.

First run through, Bridget was on fire, taking me to the fences with almost too much enthusiasm. For the two stride, Bridget jumped in on my line like a pro but I got caught out big time since she had way more gas in the tank than I expected and took my leg staying on to mean we were going for a long one stride...and so I got left a bit behind, did not slip my reins, we ended up on a weird angle,  and I managed to have quite a spectacular fall when Bridget took her giant leap and merrily galloped on. EC actually ran over, which is how you know it must have looked impressive...normally she is very much the calm and collected one. So embarrassing,  particularly after my talk last post of being disciplined and expecting immediate forward thinking pony! Then Bridget offers it up and I'm so surprised I fall off :) All I could do was laugh. (Although it's a bit frustrating now that I think on it - I definitely need to replace my helmet now and was silly and didn't buy one during the international helmet awareness day sales. Boo hoo for me.)

Also rode the big bad Q mare (and did not fall off.) Love her.

The rest of our lesson was less exciting for the bystanders. I remembered how to ride, Bridget was a pro, and I actually feel like it was one of the better rides on her I've had in a while - she was totally on the ball and responsive and was super about the up and down transitions and remaining straight and accurate without much reminding.

No actual pictures of Bridget today, but here's Ginger sulking last night because her favorite lease girl left her alone in the wash rack for 0.5 of a second.

Some final thoughts: We've had a few mishaps together in the past year.  Scary, right? Except no, it's actually not.  Every weird thing that happens has been just that...a momentary lapse of judgement,  a misstep, some awkward moment where one or both of us is learning the best we can and pushing the limits. Honestly, every time I get back up in the saddle after a fall like that I get more confident and less worried about making mistakes. Bad things happen, and we learn from them and move on to better things. It's funny, because I used to struggle with nerves and always thought the more non eventful miles I could put in, the less worried I'd be about falling or getting hurt. I think there is still some value to that but honestly it's the rides where it all goes kind of wrong but then we fix it and get it right where I learn the most and feel like I gain the most knowledge and confidence.

Tis the season, here's our weather for the upcoming week, which likely had much to do with the super fresh horses last night. Thanks Typhoon Songda!