Sunday Lesson Recap: AKA Anyone Got a Blindfold to Lend Me?

I know I owe you all a clinic recap. I know. But I had a lesson Sunday with Jenna and her adult riders (my regular instructor was out of town) and some cool things went on so I want to recap that first. And since it is my blog and I can do what I want that is what I am doing.

So sue me (please don’t sue me, we don’t need that right now. hahaha)! I also have NO MEDIA but anyway….look at the judgement in that eye up there. JUST LOOK AT IT. This was before the lesson. He was not happy.

When we started off I thought oh boy, I have a pissy horse. So pissy, in fact that after warming up, we were doing this ‘fun‘ (Jenna’s word not mine nor Remus’s) exercise where we each were at a cone and had to walk to the cone on the other side (on a circle) and keep eye contact with the other person across the way to reach the same time the opposite cone. I am sure there is an easier way to explain it but I need more coffee.

SO we were ready to start at the walk. And my damn horse not only refused to walk forward but he started backing up. All the riders in my group about fell off laughing. I had to smack him hard with the crop. He was like this is NOT my idea of fun. Finally got him moving forward and we tried again. We all got it so we did it at a trot. MUCH harder. But again we did it. Then Jenna wanted us to canter it and I exited stage right. Nope. Not doing that. So the rest tried. It was a hot mess express but at least I was not involved in it.

I heard from the barn manager that Remus started his Adequan last week. So even though I knew it might be early I hoped to feel a difference. The jury is still out as he was lazy and grumpy but he didn’t buck and he was really good over fences. So maybe it is helping. What didn’t help was the fact he has a winter coat now and it got hot again. BOO. The humidity ya’ll is back. See ya Fall. Come back soon. Sigh.

Then we did do a fun exercise (well, it scared the bejesus out of me but fun after we were done). We started out with cross rails but we had to canter the cross rail and look sharply over our shoulder at Jenna (rather than looking directly at the jump and messing Remus up as my normal riding does). It made me slightly nauseous looking away but Remus met the jump perfect. It reminded me of car sickness but hey whatever works, right?

Then she had us do two cross rails with the second one being a roll back. OMG so hard but again. Remus jumped perfectly. No chip in, no extra strides. A few of the fellow riders did even bigger jumps and again though there was a learning curve it was amazing by us looking away, our horses jumped better and cleaner than ever. What is this madness? Thank god there was mostly adults there because there was a lot of screaming and cussing as we went over the fences. It was hilarious.

We then did the two cross rails to a gate and again. Nailed it. I still wanted to puke it is a surreal feeling going over fences without looking but so much fun after the fact. Remus was jumping great. Is it the Adequan or is it me not messing him up going to the jumps? Who knows. Ha!

It was great fun and I am now thinking I might need a blindfold to ride? Anyone else?