Well, I can sit a bucking school horse!

Tonight's lesson was. Exciting. Yes, that's the word.

I had Cameo, who I've ridden in the last two lessons and got along with pretty well.

First, though, she copped a bit of an attitude when I was re-situating her saddle (it had shifted too far back before I got her) and then tightening the girth. Which is kinda par for the course with her, she's a tad girthy. Then she wanted to start walking before I was fully in the saddle. Also par for the course, but annoying.

Then, the class gets going and we're warming up trotting and I'm thinking my stirrups feel weird (I can't describe it better than that, really). I think the left one (which was the inside stirrup at the time) was a little too long or something. I just felt kinda discombobulated. Then, as I was going up to post, my foot managed to slip out of said stirrup and I totally lost my balance and came off the horse.

Luckily, I managed to somehow do this so that I was basically dismounting while trotting. I'm not entirely sure how it happened. Luckily, Cameo stopped. I don't think Kristy is sure what happened either because I think she only saw me suddenly standing on the ground.

Anyway, I got back up and we continued.

There were a couple of times where, getting Cameo to trot from a walk, she'd pin her ears and feel like she was thinking about bucking, but she didn't do it. Also on one end of the end of the arena we were working on, she would keep moving to the middle of the circle and we'd have an argument about moving back over. Still working on how to straighten a horse out that does that because my initial reaction isn't really the right one. That and, according to Kristy, I'm not getting after her enough and she knew she could get away with it.

So there was that but it wasn't too bad. I chalked it up to the weather turning colder overnight (as it had) and Cameo just being grumpy.

Until she bucked once on that end of the arena as I was pushing her back over and keeping her trotting. Pretty sure I let out a "shit!". First time a horse has done that to me in a while. Other than that, we kept going and it was okay.

Then we started trying to group canter (actually only half the class at a time, but still). The first time, she thought about bucking, wouldn't canter, and came into the ring (where the other half of the class was waiting). According to Kristy, I still needed to get after her and she was "getting into my head" and I needed to not let her do that.

So we went again. Again there were a few bucks before she straightened out. But I sat them! And didn't lose my cool.

The next time around when we went the other direction was much smoother as she apparently decided to more or less do as I'd asked.

Then we did a bit of work on trotting into a low crossrail and cantering out. I had no trouble getting her to canter there (in fact, Kristy had me drop my crop as she definitely wasn't in need of me carrying it). Mostly then it was keeping her from going before it was her turn and, once, we went over one of the "high" ends of the jump. And cantered a little too far into the other class on the other end of the ring. *facepalm*

Those last bits were much more me at fault than the horse, though. ;)

Anyway, it was definitely an exciting lesson. I left feeling like a big dork, though Kristy said I didn't do that badly, especially considering how Cameo was acting.

I suppose I figure I should be able to, at this point, just magically work with the horse and it works. Which is silly because I've only been riding again as an adult since February or so.

And even after I fixed my stirrups after that almost-fall incident at the beginning, they still felt kinda weird to me. It was just a weird night, I think.