Friday, November 14, 2008

Riding Lesson

I went to get Werther in from the paddock and the first thing I do is loose my footing and end up with my knees caked in black mud. It was kind of a mix bag after that. He was really good when I was warming up, I got the canter both directions on the first attempt. We started cantering over the pig jump as a low vertical. Then we moved on to a line of small cross rails that is really a three stride but Andre was having me add a stride and do it in four. He was really good on the left lead going away from home but I ran into some trouble when I changed direction. The first time I did the line on the right was good, but the second time I turned too early and he jumped into the line big and got really quick going though it. I got nervous after that, and I asked Andre if I could trot the line once before going back to the canter. She kind of snapped at me, told me no and said she doubted if I really wanted jump and that I had to make the choice if I want to keep doing it. I do really want to jump, it just took so long to find a horse after we retired Wesley, it took over a year to find Werther and I am really rusty jumping and I have lost a lot of the confidence Wesley gave me. Andre is the kind of trainer she almost rides too well, I don't think she has ever had a moment of anxiety riding and genuinely does not understand other people's fear and does not know how to deal with it. I don't think she was trying to be mean, but it made me feel bad. I sucked it up and went up the line again to the right, and because I was worried about him leaving long and speeding up again I kept him really collected to the first jump and did not release well over the first jump. Andre yelled at me for that, which frustrated me because she really did not understand the cause and effect of him going to fast one time, and me being to conservative the next time. We switched direction and went to the left again, I thought we had a good pace going in but he was going too fast because he did the three stride instead of adding and doing the four. This time I just mentally said "fuck it if I fall off" and stayed in two point in the line. He was still a little quick after landing the second fence but I did stay on. We did the line one last time to the left with a slower canter, however, he had rooted down the long side so I was going to overshoot my turn with the time it would take to get my hands reorganized, so I canter a circle and went over the line again. This time it went much better. I think Andre was happier with me after my lesson but I was a little depressed after my lesson, I don't know what I can say to Andre to help her understand. Any advice would be helpful.

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