No hour is wasted that is spent on the back of a horse...

A friend of mine moved barns recently, so last night I went to watch her lesson w/ her new coach (who was amazing!) n as she also has a greenie they were doing exercises very similar to what Si needs to do (now don't get me wrong, her greenie is a superstar and way beyond where we are, but at least at a point that we could realistically get to). So I leave, in a great mood from hanging out w/ a friend I don't see often enough and having met some new interesting people and head to see my horse.

Now by this point it's a lot later than I usually ride so there's only one person there -- and she's legging her horse up to go TO the track. Now she's not doing anything wrong or obnoxious or anything; just going around and around and around in endless laps of the track at trot. No problem. But Si saw this -- I don't know *what* it was she saw cause the horse was just trotting -- maybe the jockey style riding? (way up high etc) -- but she went right back to track-mode. hahaha couldn't believe it. But she did settle quickly enough -- was never *quite* convinced she wasn't supposed to race, but didn't have a meltdown either. I was pretty happy @ that. It's amazing how the bar gets lowered for some horses eh? Not "she did amazing things" just "woohoo she didn't have a meltdown!" Ah well. Anyways -- after watching the other lesson I was all inspired so poor Miss Si had to actually work *g* Had to grow up @ some point eh? Well let me tell you, we worked and worked and worked, and by the end we had half-halts in the canter (you have NO idea how excited I was at this -- we're still way downhill, but at least for a stride I can get her butt under her), jumps on a *straight* line -- even if that line was an angle, and both trot and canter poles. Now our "jump" was all of 1'. Literally *sigh* The kind of baby X where even the sides of the X are low *g* hahaha but that's not the point! The point is she did it, w/o the hesitation phase, in both trot and canter, every time! N of course all this was in like half an hour since that's all she's fit enough for @ the moment.

So many of my students are familiar w/ the "wheel of death" exercise -- one (or sometimes two) jumps on a circle that you go around and around and around until it's well... perfect :) Easy right? Then you do it again. hahaha But today I met a new wheel-of-death in, of all places, the office. Yes that's right -- it's the Mac version of the blue-screen-of-death. The pretty little multi-coloured wheel just kept spinning and spinning and spinning and succeeded in completely monopolizing my machine until I gave up and unplugged it. Sheesh

Is it sad that I can't wait till Si is ready to tackle the wheel??? hahaha Perhaps we should master the 20m circle first eh?

Had a great suggestion for the quotes at the top of my new website (which, btw, is www.graduateridingschool.com if you're interested) so will prob be spending the wknd making that happen. hahaha ah well.

Ok off for now. Soooooo glad it's Friday!