A few lessons learned

I had a whole huge post written up about the ride (very short) I had on Monday but Blogger ate it and I don't feel like re-doing it so I shall, instead, sum up.

Monday I was dying to ride in the deep snow, because I never have, and it always looks like fun. I learned a few things from the experience:

1. If you're going to ride in deep snow, do so right after it falls and is still powdery. Waiting till it's been sitting around a week and is now heavy and crusty on top is not a good idea.
2. It would behoove you to check your tack before riding lest one of your reins break while you're stranded out in the middle of thigh-deep snow.

Thankfully, my horse is a saint and I hopped off and I slooooowly trudged back through the snow to the beaten down path the horses had made in the field, ignoring the look Kieran was giving me of, "Mom, you're an idiot, but see, I still take care of you." I probably could have gotten away, in hindsight, with just gathering up both reins, grabbing some mane, and sending him back toward the gate, as I highly doubt he would have run off with me or otherwise taken advantage but at the time my first reaction was to hop off.

That was the only ride he'd really had at all since two weeks from yesterday and it hardly even counts since it lasted all of two minutes and I wasn't really asking him to do anything besides plow through snow.

So last night was my lesson, and it was to be an hour long (instead of the usual half-hour) so we could make up for missing last week due to the Snowpocalypse. It turns out...Kieran really can't go that long without being ridden as his brains fall out and he gets lazy. He didn't get stupid or crazy though so I can't be too hard on him. ;) Though we did try cantering a bit and then he'd start anticipating and getting fast so he is now going to learn that anticipating and getting fast means he has to do circles until he slows down and gives a nice trot.

But since he wasn't all there, we didn't ask him to work too hard on anything that required much thought from him. Christina instead told me to drop my stirrups and started telling me things to do as I rode around the ring. "Turn right at A, do a 10 meter circle in the corner, posting trot coming out of it, now a 20 meter circle at B, then a free walk at F across the diagonal..." Uh, you get the idea. :) Ow, my thighs.

Planning on going up to ride him tonight and we'll see if his brains have come back. He did, at least, stand perfectly for mounting. (almost perfectly, he started thinking about walking off as I was getting my feet in the stirrups but stopped when I said whoa).