Concise update

It’s coming up to exam time now at school and I have other stresses in my personal life at present such as finding a place to live (I’ve found places that are perfect for my needs and within budget and then been let down by the landlords/letting agents after I’ve thought everything was sorted – but that’s not for moaning about on here), so for the next five weeks or so I’m going to keep on top of posts as I have been doing hitherto but keep them short and sweet, and probably without pictures. Sorry.

Anyway, this week was back to ‘normal’. I finally rode tall, elegant Symphony. She was lovely to ride in that her trot and her canter were lovely and smooth, but difficult to work with in so far as it was nigh on impossible to get her to do anything because she was so ‘lethargic’, as my riding instructor put it. Consequently, I felt my legs got a really good work-out from constantly pushing on.

It seems that from my fall last week I have lost a bit of confidence transitioning to canter, as both times I had a go I felt like I really needed to hold onto the neck strap. I’m back to the place I was in at the start of the year, where once I’m in canter I’m fine, but the strike into it makes me feel a bit nervous and unsteady at first. Unfortunately (considering this is the case), Symphony has a known habit of transitioning into the canter really smoothly and obligingly, but only cantering for a few strides before going back into trot because she’s – as I would prefer to put it – laid back. At least she was easy to keep on the track in all three gaits. My instructor picked up my loss of confidence, and said that as long as I have horses like Symphony for a few weeks I’ll be back to where I was in no time, which is encouraging.

I think on balance I would actually rather canter on Bramble, though. She’s resistant and her canter is really shaky, but I know where I am with her and while she might test me, she never flat-out ignores me!

After the lesson I led Symphony back to her stall and untacked her. She was totally obliging then, and demonstrated not only intelligence, but what appeared to have been consideration for the safety of the human. As I led her in she walked straight to her hay net and stood with her nose in it, hind-quarters to the door; when I went to close the door, I gently pushed her with my palm three times to ask her to step aside a bit so I wouldn’t end up between her hooves and the door, and she responded immediately; not by stepping aside into the direction I was pushing, but in the opposite direction so her backside was facing into the far corner and I had plenty of space to move around both her and the door!

No sign of Soapy anywhere tonight. I think she might be on holiday, which is a lovely thought.