Riding Beau and Cash.

I completely forgot to post this yesterday – OOPS! Sorry about that!

On Tuesday I went out to the barn to ride for the first time since my lesson. My trainer hurt her back so before I went out there I asked her if there was anything I could do to help her out. She told me that I could go ahead and ride her horse, Cash, for her. I feel bad her back is out but… I was really excited to get some extra riding time in!

First thing I did was setup the jumps to the correct height (2’6”) and grabbed Beau from his stall. I tacked up and then we were ready to work. Beau was an angel! After my lesson last week I told myself that I was going to go into this ride with a clear mind and completely forget about the bad ride we had a few days prior. Doing this completely relaxed me and we were so much more in sync. Me relaxing, relaxed Beau and it was smooth sailing from there. I didn’t do full courses but I did jump two lines in a row (4 jumps) several times and we did great!

Beau was really lengthening and finding his spots so I settled in and let him point us in the right direction. It worked most of the time and we got some really nice fences in. I was so pleased with our ride, I ended it on a good note and we headed back to the barn. Next I was going to ride Cash.

I had never ridden Cash before so Mandi (my trainer) gave me a few pointers and sent me on my way. I hopped on him and immediately realized how much closer I was to the ground; he is a lot smaller than Beau! I trotted Cash around and got him to frame up nicely and then asked him to canter. While I was cantering him Mandi came out and gave me a few suggestions to get him to settle and lengthen his stride and then asked me to do flying lead changes (this is where you are cantering in one direction and then switch them to the opposite direction). We did flying lead changes both ways and he was really good! I have to say that I really enjoyed riding Cash and I would love to get the opportunity to ride him more in the future!

All in all, I had two great rides on Tuesday! I am so happy that Beau and I were on the same page again and recovered from last week’s lesson failure. As always, I’m looking forward to going out there Sunday and riding him again!