You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November, 2008.
It is cold here. Readers in the States, those in the midwest and northeast, will laugh and laugh, but it’s 30 degrees Farenheit, and we are bitchin’.
Covert negotiations between the instructors allowed the adults to take the indoor, and why not? The children can take the weather, hardy little beings that they are… and besides, we were outside last week. Here’s hoping for a heat wave next Saturday.
Cold, but it was bright, and I’ll take a blue sky any day. Not that it would stop any of us from pitching up to the yard. When it rains, we’re all assured that we’re not made of sugar. There was no allusion made to what we could be comprised of in this freezing [for Ireland] weather; I suppose no one’s had to figure that one out.
We’re not made of… water? Read the rest of this entry »
So. Canter poles. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s gotten to be a habit: every Tuesday before the lesson, I pick out Rebel’s feet and give him an auld combover. He was in a mood this past week; he’s mostly stopped farting in my face when I lift his near hind hoof, but he came up with some new tricks.
As I clawed at the mud and poo in cupped in his shoe, he leaned down, and peeled open the velcro closure at the top of my half chaps. Scccccrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrritch, and he snorted.
‘Very funny, dude,’ I said. It really was.
I leant back over his foot, and he bit me on the arse.
Not a big bite, but not a nudge or a nibble either. I took it to mean, ‘Thanks.’
It’s nice when’s he’s playful, because his other mood is sheer cussedness. He was kind of mental on Saturday, but once we got working he relaxed. My posture is much better, too, which is making it easier on him.
After his little games in the barn, he was pretty much gold in the arena. He’s been throwing his head down in the canter and verging on gallop, but with my improved posture, I don’t panic so much.
We’ve been jumping better, mostly because I’ve started thinking about it. No, let me rephrase that: I have been thinking about jumping a lot lately, because my instructors have deemed it so, so I was really, really crap for a while, but now I’m maybe improving again.
So: lately the jumping hasn’t been too crap, so some of the stuff they’ve made me think about is maybe sinking in.
But no matter what, if he’s not into it, it just makes it that much harder. If he’s dragging his feet [literally], or is low energy, or if we’re not meshing on the day, then I can keep my leg on til the cows come home, and he’s not going to go for it.
So he can bite my bum as much as he wants — I’ll take it to bode well for the next hour.
It’s got nothing to do with breeds or feeds.
Do I take off my half chaps after a lesson, or keep them on? Read the rest of this entry »
…is what I think, when I see runners pounding down the coast road in the driving rain.
And then, of course, I think of myself. Read the rest of this entry »
I haven’t had a go on Amigo yet, but he is absolutely lovely to hang out with. Read the rest of this entry »
NO PARTRIDGES Also, one broken long whip, one slightly broken long whip, a short whip, four pairs of gloves—!— sheesh.
People [taxi men] always say, isn’t horseriding expensive, and I’m like, no, once you get the stuff, you’re sorted.
But I like the stuff, so I keep buying it.
The thing with the gloves, though. That’s something of a story. Read the rest of this entry »
IT’S NICE One of my instructors bought Drama Queen. She had it with her so I could sign it. !
I sat on Delilah, and after unwrapping the irons and getting myself sorted, I looked up, and there was the book, face out, propped up against the wall along with the day’s list, and the random crops that have been culled from the floor of the indoor.
It was a delightful, awesome, and buzzy sight.
It was messy going, and as I signed after the lesson, I got a little bit of dirt on the page.
It seemed only right.
