Riding Progress

I showed up early at the barn yesterday so I would have plenty of time to groom, tack and warm up both me and the horse. As with some best laid plans I forgot to factor in that my trainer and I use the same girth so I had to wait until her session was over before I could lay hands on it. She had remembered to put out a second bridle for me as her horse and mine use the same one. Oh well, I think it pissed off the clinician a little bit as she mentioned how I should have warmed up before my session. I reminded her about the girth mishap (old people don't take no crap from nobody!) Subsequently, I came home and ordered my own girth to keep this from happening again. I had a girth for the Belgian mare I used to ride but it is way too big for the gelding. It was one of those things I had been planning to do and yesterday was just incentive enough to get me to actually do it.

My regular trainer rode two of her horses. First her five year old green gelding. She lunged him before tacking him up and then wanted him to cool down. I started walking around the arena and he followed me like a big puppy - he didn't even have a halter on. He is such a sweet guy. I kind of hope that I can stick to riding long enough for him to be a safe mount for me. My husband suggested he was following me because I had carrots in my pocket but that wasn't the case. Of course he may have smelled them from Tuesday but he wasn't nosing my pocket so I don't think that was his motive. She rode one of her dressage warmbloods for her second session. I refer to him as "the big giant head" as he is stalled next to my horse and is always sticking his head over the divider begging for treats. Scares me to death half the time because I'll turn around and practically walk into him. He's nice but way too much horse for me to consider riding at this point.

Anyway, the clinician remembered me from last time and kept asking questions about the stuff we had done. She had a better memory than I did. We mostly worked on getting the horse to bend around my leg at the corners, getting me to post the correct diagonal and my crappy transition from trot to walk. I just need to remember to post slower and not try to sit in the saddle while the horse is still traveling at a fast clip. Once he slows down it's much easier for me to sit deep in the saddle and convert to a walk. At least I apparently now have my leg in the proper position as I didn't get called on it like the last time.

In non-horse news we have signed up for a 30 day free trial of Netflix. Apparently it eats huge gigs of [Internet memory (I think)] so we are going to have to sign up for more, which of course won't be free. We also didn't have the wireless LAN adapter for the TV in the bedroom so ordered one from Samsung. I am trusting their site that the one I ordered is the right one for our TV model. I should find out in a few days as it's already been shipped.