pictures 'n' ponies

Ummmm soooo finals are over and I have a functional computer, which means it's....pixel dump time! I've been riding a lot (well, for me) this year so far. If I'm lucky: 1 hunt seat lesson, 1 dressage lesson, and hacking my friend's bitchy pony at the dressage barn (do dressage people say hacking?). Usually it's more like 2 of the above though. But there's also horse shows. Although that is more a 5-minutes-of-fame thing, but riding is riding, and I love getting the chance to ride all the different schools' horses. Luckily my roomie is also on the college team, so I exploit her for photos as much as possible :p

Things that stand out to me: someone needs to tell me that my elbows do, in fact, bend. Also I need to stop leaning forward. I need my stirrups to get taken away 'cause even though I feel like I'm better with getting my leg under me, I'm sooooo weeeeeaaaaaaaak. Also I may be developing crotch-hand-itis; please send halp.

So, um, in chronological order?

First dressage show of the year, Oct 17 & 18. Intro B.

1st day. This is totally the best horse in the region, we got a 67

2nd day. This one was a lot lazier and all our comments were like "duuuuude get off the forehand." Got a 61 I think? (Different judge, too).

1st hunt seat show of the year, 10/25. Not only do I ride mediocre w/t tests, I also can't feel my leads reliably, particularly on new horses, so uh, we happily cantered around the wrong lead one direction. Got 4th out of 7 though.

Riding the bitchy morbidly obese pony, 11/1. This saddle is awful, uncomfortable, encourages my chair seat, and doesn't fit the poor pony's non-withers at ALL.

Mmmm motorcycling around on the forehand

And bareback. This supports my saddle-sux theory, as well as the fact that hey whaddaya know, when I relax a bit sometimes I can ride.

Mock dressage show, 11/7. It was...interesting. We did it the same format as our shows, so 10 minutes of warmup with trainer and then do your test. It was an unseasonably gorgeous day and they were cutting the corn in the neighboring field, so the horses were just a bit excited. 2/8 people fell off. Luckily I wasn't one of them :p

Sososososo proud of these pictures. I printed one and taped it on my wall for those oh-god-I-can't-do-this days, just to prove that I can on occasion. It helps when a (much better) person has already ridden the horse earlier in the day though

And we didn't even lose all the roundness after taking a walk break to come inside to run our test

2nd hunt seat show, 11/14 & 15. Got a 5th the first day and a 2nd the next. Out of like 8-10 or so both times.

1st day. Crabby horsey was sick of doing umpteen classes.

2nd day. I drew this horse at the last show at that school and he took off on me (and another girl in another class) at the canter like 4 times. So I was quite a bit nervous to be on him again but I'm glad I was because now I feel so much better. And we got 2nd so yeah. Things I need to work on: not bracing against the stirrups and pushing my feet out in front of me at the sitting trot.

2nd dressage show, 11/21. Cute cute horse but once we got in the arena he wanted to stop dead.
Trotting around waiting for the bell

Sadly we did not look that good during the actual judged part. I guess that is why my instructor is constantly trying to get me to "ride the horse, not the test!"

So, those were the shows thus far. Lesson vids in the next post.
Also, what I do when not riding English: gaited horses!