Lesson: I thought I Was in a Western Class…?

Hi everyone! Today was my first day in the intermediate class.  Christina wasn’t there today again, so we had another sub.  She was a PC (Pony Club) instructor, named Tamara, I think (that’s what Dakino told me…).  Tamara let us choose our horses to ride, and I scanned through the horses that would be in the class. Centaur, I want to ride him…., Murphy, he looks like a good ride…, Pedro, so pretty and Dakino says he’s good…. Someone chose Centaur, so I chose to ride Pedro the chestnut and white pinto.I mounted him, got my stirrups adjusted and my cinch tightened, and walked into the arena.  I didn’t know what warmup was, so I walked around the arena a few times, circling every few times. I pretty much copied whatever Dakino did for warmup…. I reversed directions and walked.  I practiced walk-halt transitions once or twice during the warm-up before we started trotting around the arena.

Tamara had us post the trot. We lined up and trotted around, down the centerline of the arena, and other stuff.  Tamara asked us to post the trot on the long sides of the arena, do a western jog on the short sides. With Pedro, it was all the same.  He did a western jog even when I posted. After, we did a  loping exercise where we had to lope on one half of the arena, while the rest of the class was walking on the other end of the arena. I walked Pedro to the other side of the arena, and got him to trot.  I asked him to lope, and he darted off, bolting to the other horses. He excited Cisco, who was also in our class. We tried again, and Pedro did the exact same thing.

We tried one more time, and I split my reins this time. I kept pressure on his outside, to prevent him from darting to the group of other horses. When I prevented him from bolting, he had the most amazing  lope I had ever felt, the same as Elko’s. It was so smooth, I didn’t even realize he was cantering too fast for a controlled western lope. I slowed him to a walk, and walked Pedro into the group of other horses and another rider prepared her horse to do the loping exercise. I walked around the half of the arena with the other students, until everyone finished loping.  We then loped against the current of horses, in the half of the arena on the inside.  Loping Pedro was the same as previous, except he didn’t freak out from being alone. We cooled them off and dismounted. We led the horses up to the arena, where the employees collected them from us.

After the lesson, Dakino and I went on a short hike around the ranch, and we got some pictures!  I’ll post them later… 😉 and I’m continuing lessons over winter :DD

Horses in the lesson:

1. Jupiter
2. Centaur
3. Cisco
4. Pedro
5. Jetta
6. Chuck-E
7. Soldier
8. Errr I think there’s more…

• Garrod Farms
• intermediate
• jog
• jogging
• pedro
• post
• posting
• trot
• trotting
• weekly
• Weekly lessons
• western