A cantering madgirl.

Another Tessie lesson has come and gone, and with a certain amount of progress. I’m just a little bit too tall for her, so I have to have loooong stirrups, which makes the obvious problem of my heels ever worse. However, after 10 minutes of sitting trot without stirrups (and remembering to breathe) I was able to bounce down into my heels quite nicely when I was rising. We did canter transitions with a transition or figure of our choice before trotting to the rear of the ride, which blew everybody’s mind. We are so used to being told exactly what to do and when to do it that it was a bit of a culture shock. We were starting on Tessie’s worse side, so I decided to not risk a walk/halt transition and do a simple 20 metre circle. Not that it worked very well. I cantered at H and attempted a 20 metre circle at A, only to find that Nevada had conveniently stopped halfway through my curve. So Tessie had to make the circle into something more like a 12 metre circle, and because she’s so unbalanced, she broke. It wasn’t her fault, just mine and Nev’s :). On the other rein, I tried a canter up the three quarter line from C, but that also didn’t go according to plan. When I cantered Tessie just before C, the ride where at the three quarter line near A, so I couldn’t canter into them. Instead I had to do a 20 metre circle in canter (which she did very nicely) and then pop up the three quarter line and behind the ride. I suppose it worked better than it would have done had she gone straight up the three quarter line, as she was (sort of) warmed up for the corner. At the end of the lesson, we were told trot around on a long rein (if we could) keeping the horses slow and steady. I was in front with Tess, then Smarts then Nev. Tessie decided that she was a racing pony and plunged down the long side the minute I released the reins a tiny bit, and Nev decided she wanted to have a better view of Smart’s bottom, and ploughed into him. Smartie just trotted around like a big whale, unfazed. Even when I leant back and stuck my heels out in front of me, Tessie would not slow down. If you half halt, she sticks her head in the air, making her more unbalanced and speedy. I had to take back the contact (at this point I was opposite Smartie when I should have been 2 horses distance away) and haul and release both reins for the slightest response.
But it was kind of fun going speedy Gonzales around the arena :P
Gotta go watch Doctor Who! See you!
TLCx