Rosso

I hope everyone had a good weekend!

I had a lesson Saturday on...... Rosso! Yup. I did! Me. The big yeller chicken.

I'd been taking him up to the barn on my cleaning night to let him hang out, stand like a polite member of horse society, then tacking him up and lunging him in the indoor before taking him home.

I rode him before I began showing Sera this summer but my tiny pea brain couldn't focus on a youngster that I was having brain bugs about AND work toward Sera's tests and movements and shows.

Saturday I brought him up, tacked him up with shaky fingers... told myself. "Self. Hey - pay attention. Is he doing any thing that causes you to worry?"

"No." I replied to myself.

"O.K. then. You have to trust he knows his job, he doesn't have the pain in his back anymore, he is being a model equine citizen. You have to extend trust!"

Sigh. "O.K., O.K., O.K. self - quit nagging"

I led him into the indoor, lunged him for a bit, put the lunge line away, led him to the middle of the arena.

"Here goes Self!"

Up I went. Settled into the saddle. Rosso stood stock still. Good boy! I scritched his withers, rubbed his neck. Wiggled around in the saddle... let him stand and let both of us relax a minute.

I asked him to go forward. He did with a nice, springy, forward walk. It felt like a walk you'd see in a Richard Pryor/Gene Wilder movie... Yeah. I'm bad. I'm cool. I'm bad.

We did lots of changes of direction, 3 loop serpentines, diagonals... bumped it up to trot. Very even, rhythmic, forward... some slight spiral in on a 20m circle and leg yield out.... shallow loops down the long side.... then some shallow loop with leg yielding back to the wall.... all went very well. I was relaxed, he was relaxed - nice floppy ears.

Then I had no horse left. He was tired... I had to drive him forward - he went - I just had to put a lot more effort into it and then I was tired. We pushed him for a bit longer and ended the lesson there.

I didn't want to get down! Such a nice ride and I wasn't afraid and all went well...

So I stayed up there.

For the rest of the weekend.

Rode him into work today. In fact, I'm typing this from a laptop up in my saddle. Getting him up the stairwell was hard, but worth it. Good thing I have a big cubicle.