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Despite my slight resentment for having to ride the same horse over and over again, I have to admit, Lucky is good for me. I think that I could really get somewhere with Harry, who I wish Jackie would put me on, but I'm not sure if he's as much GOOD for me. I'm good for him, because I don't let him pick fights with me, I just calmly tell him "no" when he starts to throw a hissy fit and go along with out work. He's pretty fancy when you can get him going well. The problem is getting him going well, since he usually threatens to rear whenever you ask for the trot. How we managed to accept that horse into our program is beyond me, but I'm glad that we did. Maybe when he's out of boot camp Jackie will let me ride him a few times.

But Lucky actually focuses on my problems. He's so sensitive, if I'm tense, if I'm leaning, if I get too micro-managerial, he loses it. If I give slightly too strong an aid for the canter, we have a complete emotional meltdown. He's teaching me subtlety. Which I need to learn. Too many hard-headed thoroughbreds that needed to be bossed around in my past I suppose.

Jackie made the comment to Pam the other day during out lesson that on a horse like Moses, who is totally reliable, if things aren't going your way, you have to look to your position and what you're doing if he's not doing what you want. I thought about it and thought, well, even with a horse that isn't totally reliable, a horse with more sensitive "emotional needs" as Jackie put it when refering to Lucky, it still stems back to you. If he's running through his transitions and getting panicky in the canter, I have to look at my body and think "what am I doing to make him uncomfortable, and what can I do to reassure him". Even if the fault doesn't lie completely with me, I have to take some responsibility for what's going on underneath me. True, I'll never get the canter-pirrouette out of Lucky that I can occasionally coax out of Ben, or the expressive half-pass that I know I could find in Harry if I had him as a project horse for a few months, but he'll try his little heart out for me if I just treat him with a soft and sensitive touch.

He's also teaching me the true value of uberstreichen. I'm sure I butchered the spelling of that word. My apologies to any Germans who may be reading this. The way Lucky can work himself up into such a tizzy, by giving the rein, just for a stride, it encourages him to relax, and to start to develop a little self-carriage. Not a lot... He's never going to be a fancy upper level horse who can actually sit back and carry himself, but he can achieve a lower-level connection and learn how to move through without balancing on the rider. It's taken me a while to train myself that, when he starts getting frantic, sometimes giving the rein is all that he needs and he'll breathe a sigh of relief and relax back into a steady rhythm. Completely different from my thoroughbred who would take any inch of slack you accidently gave him and use it to take off into the next county.

I was slightly amused yesterday though, when Jackie didn't know what I meant by Uberstreichen... But oh well. I know that she doesn't have a lot of formal dressage background, she just knows how to work with horses. I'm really enjoying my rides with her, more than I thought I would. She kind of lets me do my own thing while she works with Pam and Patricia, occasionally giving me exercises to work on and the random correction. I was a little worried about being the upper level rider in the lesson, but it's working out quite well. And it's good for Pam and Patricia.

I hope practice rides start soon. I want to be able to work with him a little at my own pace, with my own exercises. I have a few things I'd like to try with him. I'm also hoping that maybe, once practice rides start, Jackie might put me on Katie on occasion as well. From what she's told me, Katie's a lot like Lucky, very sensitive, so Jackie's thinking we'd be a good match. And once Harry gets permission to go back into lessons, I'll probably get to ride him. There aren't many people that Jackie trusts with those horses, and she doesn't know the freshman well enough yet to put them on them.

Well, I think that's probably enough for tonight. More installments as I learn more.

I rode the CUTEST horse at the show this weekend. His name is Sam. He's a 17hh red roan Irish Draught. Incredibly lazy, and I drew third ride, unfortunately. When I walked down to get on him he gave me this look that said "You've got to be kidding, ANOTHER one? But he still put forth all of his effort to give me a good test. He was a little hard to get forward, so I focused my warm-up on getting him up in front of my leg, and trying to figure out where his stretch button was. Unfortunately, I was thinking so much about forward and impulsion and getting him down into the stretch movements (Seeing as they are coefficients) that accuracy kind of got thrown to the curb. My score reflected it, I scored a 60.4%, and the judge was scoring generally high for the day. I came in 8th, the winning score was a 72.4% for my division, and the high score of the day was a 77% which, frankly, is rediculous. Especially for an Intro test, which is the division that the high scores came from.
But I have a feeling that I'm going to be getting cones and markers in the dressage ring for the next few months and get drilled on accuracy. Which I need. But it's still miserable. *sigh* oh well. It was a good show anyway.

I realized something terrifying yesterday...

I like working with teenagers.

WTF?

OMG. Laziest. Pony. Evar.

Went up to the barn when I finally got back to HR this Christmas and my trainer's daughter invited me to come ride in their jumping lesson the next day. She said I could ride Maggie, Molly's pony, but to make sure I came prepared to beat the crap out of her, because she was incredilby lazy.

Well, she was right. Only horse in the ring not freaking out and flying all over the place (interesting change for me...) but I did have to beat her forward the entire lesson. She knows her changes (something I'm also not used to! Not like my crazy thoroughbreds that will careen merrily along on the wrong lead for ages) so I was supposed to try to keep her cantering through the entire course, which was a basic hunter course but with bending lines instead of the diagonals. I was actually impressed, she packs more of a buck then I thought, really gets her whole back into it, but doesn't drop her head, so she still barely puts me off balance. The rest of the girls in the lesson started cheering though, because apparently she puts on quite a show when she gets displeased, and apparently I beat her forward more effectively than the kids that normally ride her. So, by the end of the lesson, by the time we got up to about 2'6 to 2'9, I finally had the little beast in front of my leg.

The bad news? I've developed a chair seat. I was wondering why my balance felt strange in my 2-point when we were warming up, until my trainer remarked that my leg was really far out in front of me. So now I've got to figure out how to fix that. Of course, I could always just go back to dressage and forget about Jumping for another year and a half. I think I'll do that. My position in a dressage saddle isn't half as atrocious as my jumping position. razz