Yeh, so I bit the dust today, and not in the I’m-riding-fast-and-it’s-very-dusty-&-windy way either… Joey, whom I have rechristened Sparrow incidentally, bucked me off today. It was totally my fault though ~ I scared the living daylights out of him apparently!
See it went like this: we are in our lesson, trying to achieve a true right canter lead. He does the left lead beautifully, but on the right, if I go straight for even one stride he’ll pop in a flying change{!!} and switch leads. So we’re working, working, working on it; pushing past counter canters, and disunited canters, and he gets it right. I wanted to make much of him, but couldn’t pat him or he’d take advantage and switch leads again.
So I cheered. Rather loudly too… Ooops! Next thing I’m above the horse, knowing I’m done for, hitting the ground{butt first ~ it hurt}, and rolling over while Sparrow heads for the gate. My instructor said that he totally freaked out. Which is all well and good for him, but of course I’ve got to get up and do it again, hopefully sans the bucking and falling off part!! : /
I won’t lie, my legs were shaky. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve taken a fall that bad. I have come off a couple of times, but it’s never been a “What-The-Chocolate-Fudge-Brownies-Just-Happened??!!??” fall for oh, at least six years? I have been able to feel it coming, rather than today’s BAM! OUCH! Oh, I’m off…
It’s rather disconcerting to say the least. Still, I hopped on and the boring end to the story is that we did it again, got the correct canter lead, managed a full circle this time, and didn’t even have a hint of trouble. I don’t think Sparrow did it to purposely dump me, but of course there is no WAY I am going to give him any clues that he can do that again!!!
In fact, I hope that never EVER happens again. I used to think that I was pretty good a sitting a buck, but I didn’t even feel this one coming, so I certainly don’t want to test him {or me} out.
On the upside, I think he’s going to be pretty nifty at dressage ~ he was doing beautiful flying changes on both leads, left and right. It was funny, but he taught himself to do them all in one go! The first time he tried it on the left to right lead, he only changed his front end, and ended up cantering disunited, but after one or two turns like that he got himself sorted out quick smart!
He certainly is exceedingly fast on the uptake, and he’s good at sorting his own feet out. I am really happy with how the whole lesson went barring the one, rather major, incident that saw me tumbling in the sand.
He’s moving into my paddocks this weekend, so we’ll see how he goes with a change of scenery. Should be fun! : D
See ya!
bonita
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