So, last night was my first (of 6) riding lesson. To sum it up, it went sort of okay. I didn't make a total fool of myself, but I wasn't far from it.
I was assigned to ride Bergen, an oh-my-gawd-he's-tall bay gelding. He's mostly a hunter horse, but he also goes Western. But seriously, I can't even see over his withers. He's got to be at least 16 hands, and possibly taller. Both my previous horses were 15 hands at the most. Needless to say, I had to use a mounting block to get on, and probably should have used one to get off.
For the good news - I'm not the oldest person in the class, or the only adult. Yay. There are 6 total in my class, three adults and three munchkins. So, since there are two instructors, we split up. Adults in the outdoor ring, kiddies in the indoor. I'm riding with two women in their 50s. One has a mare at home, but I think the mare is green and a bit intimidating. (Been there, done that - three years of hell with a bay gelding, thanks.) The other doesn't have a horse, but takes lessons and rides a lot with friends. Then there's me - haven't been on a horse in 12 years, never had a lesson, only intentionally went faster than a trot maybe six times, none with great results.
Yeah. Which of these three is not like the others? That would be me.
We basically spent the hour walking and trotting (most of us, anyway), getting used to the horses, practicing the steering and brakes and such. I bombed at this part. I could not, no matter what, get this horse to trot. I think I got half a dozen strides of a trot, total, and that involved the instructor (Tiffany) grabbing his bridle and encouraging him, which had him pinning his ears in an ugly way. The woman who rides a lot had no problem, and the other woman, Sue, even got her sluggish mare to trot a bit. Me? No luck. Squeezing, nudging, kicking, clucking - nothing worked. Toward the end of the hour, I was even having problems getting a walk out of him.
And then, when it came time to dismount, I forgot how tall this horse is, and didn't kick my foot out of the stirrup. Almost did the vertical splits, because I am not a tall person. I swear, if I ever have a horse again, it'll be a pony.
It was a little humiliating overall, and I'm thinking the whole thing was a big expensive mistake. I basically spent $30 ($50 if you include the boots) and an hour trying to get a trot out of a horse. I came home with a splitting headache and crashed on the bedroom floor, put my head by the AC vent, and cried for half an hour.
I don't think it would bother me quite so much if there were more time, but with only six lessons total, spending a whole lesson not being able to trot is a big chunk of time. Things may be better tomorrow, but if not, I'll have to ask for a different horse. I hate to give up that fast, and let this one win, but I also hate to waste time on a horse that I can't get to do anything. Especially if I'm not sure why we're not communicating. Maybe I'm reining him wrong - he's in a snaffle, so I think I'm doing some weird hodgepodge of neck reining and direct reining. If all I can get him to do is walk, then I won't get much out of these lessons. Or maybe I'm expecting too much, I don't know. I realize it's just six hours of riding, and I won't be ready for the Olympics afterwards (HA!), but if all I wanted to do was plod around in circles, I can go down to the state park and ride their nose-to-tail-plodder trail horses.
2 comments:
Aw, Christi, I'm sorry it didn't go well. And to add insult to injury (or is that injury to insult), your ass probably hurts now, too!
If I were you, I'd try to go early next time and talk to the instructor. Explain your frustration. If you described yourself to them the way you just described yourself in your blog (gone faster than a trot only a few times, with bad results), you can hardly blame them if they put you on the slowest, laziest guy in the place.
Ask what specifically you can do. Is there something specific she thinks you're doing wrong? Can you carry a crop? Wear spurs? If he's lazy, he might just be used to ignoring people as much as possible and you might need to prove that you mean what you ask.
Keep at it. You'll be amazed at how much more confident you feel next time, and confidence is a big factor in convincing something that outweighs you by a thousand pounds that he ought to do what you ask. :)
The ass, surprisingly, is fine. Inner thighs, on the other hand, huurt. (Adductors? Abductors? One or the other.)
The only info I put on the application was that I'd had a horse growing up, but hadn't been riding in 12 years. I was more worried about being over-horsed than under-horsed. These horses are all, I think, horses that the college students train and show on. Tiffany did say that they had been "on vacation" since classes ended in May, but that Bergen & the others would probably be ready to work on Wednesday. Of course, it's supposed to be 88 degrees tomorrow, so we'll see.
(This is why I wanted the 7:00-9:00 pm class, and why I didn't consider taking the July session - too damn hot.)
Tomorrow, after I scale the horse-mountain, if things aren't going better, I'll be asking what I'm doing wrong, because we obviously aren't communicating. I think we're going to work on things like forehand and hindquarter turns and such, which will be neat because I haven't done that.
But if things aren't improving, I'll ask for a different horse for the next lesson. It's not like I'm doing this for two months and have time to fiddle around - we've only got six hours total. If I wanted frustration, I would have kept my last horse. God knows, he was good at that.
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