A Weekend of Firsts

I had my very first schooling show this past Saturday- all things considered, it went pretty well. The other divisions were categorized by skill level for the younger riders but the only division I could compete in was set up by age (18 & older)- consequently I was up against some very tough competition who were all literally jumping and cantering circles around me. Poor Dylan had already done about 4-5 divisions with other riders that day so he was not looking his best either. Suffice to say with the knowledge and skills gap I didn’t get in the ribbons. Of course it would have been amazing to bring home a ribbon but it’s the experience that mattered in this case, and it definitely gave me fuel to keep getting better and work even harder to improve.

Rori and I had a lesson together yesterday with Christy and it addressed some questions that had come up during the past month. Christy hopped on her for a moment and I was slightly relived that the little hiccups that I noticed with her trotting consistently and the occasional head tossing weren’t completely because of me. I got back on her and got to work on my canter seat with Rori on the lunge line. She’s given me a few canter steps while we were out on the trail but they were sporadic and hesitant. Walk , trot, and canterrrrr. And there it was, I felt it! We were cantering! I had the biggest smile on my face. Christy let me go for a few more times around before stopping Rori to give me a high-five. She could no longer contain the silent applause in her head and had to heap praise on both of us. I was grinning from ear to ear the rest of the afternoon.

We finished off the lesson with a little trotting and I got to feel Rori do her pacey trot and it was actually super comfortable to sit. I’m half wondering if this is something I could get her to consistently do out on the trail because I could probably ride that for hours if she had the go power to keep it up. Our first real event together will be a 6-8 mile hunter pace the first week of April. Thanks to daylight savings and the longer days, Rori and I got a lot more trail mileage in last week. Hopefully this keeps up!