Riding Lesson #5

It was the hottest night of riding so far (90 predicted for the high today), but it was a good night overall.

It started out with Peyton being a silly goose and dumping his saddle and blanket on the ground while I was in the bathroom (twice, apparently). Funny boy, that one. He got to spend the night out in the pasture last night, which may have improved his mood. It definitely made his hind ankles look better. We did some warmup at a walk, then moved on to trotting. He was more willing to do a slowish trot this time, unlike the power trot on Monday. I concentrated on keeping him working in the ends of the arena - he likes to gawk out the doors when we're there - and dealt with his weird desire to drift out from the rail in a couple of areas. Had to pop him on the butt with the end of one rein now and then to reinforce things; those long split reins have multiple uses. :)

Then we got to the loping section. Sara put the other girl on a lunge line for a few minutes; she's been riding Alera (the TB, Seattle Slew granddaughter), and Sara wasn't sure how she'd do at a lope. She did pretty well, from what I saw, and the little girl (okay, 11-ish, so not little-little) rode well. Then it was my turn with Peyton, but not on the lunge. He does better on the long sides, so I'm not sure the circling would have been helpful. At any rate, our first lap at the lope had issues, because I was letting him fall apart in the corners. The second lap, I made sure to keep my inside leg on him - that kept him going forward instead of dropping to a trot, and also helped keep him out on the rail. I managed almost a full lap of the indoor at a lope!! And for at least part of it, I wasn't bouncing around too badly.

That was all the loping we did today, probably due to the heat. We did some more work with obstacle courses over poles, this time with three pole sections and some diagonal work. I need to work a little more on rating his trot; he speeds up over poles and then slows down later. He also gets pretty bouncy over the poles, which is harder to sit to.

Too bad there's only one more ride this session. I've enjoyed it more this year, I know. Possibly because I knew what to expect, possibly because I got off to a bad start with Bergen the Amazingly Tall Horse last year. Or maybe I just got some of my confidence back, Lord knows that nitwit of a bay gelding spent three years stomping on it.

More on that tomorrow. I'm ready for bed. I just hope I move around in my sleep a little tonight so I don't wake up stiff tomorrow. I guess I've been sleeping really sound (soundly?) lately, because I don't think I move around as much as usual.