Lesson on Butters 12/28/2011

Isn't he the cutest?! Little QH gelding bred for reining and cutting but thankfully Laura saw the potential in him as a little English critter. Don't let the video fool you: he is quite hard to ride! You have to really convince him that, yes, he can jump it and, no, he won't mess up. He's also kind of lazy heehee. Thankfully riding Greta has taught me a thing or two on boosting a horse's confidence, and now Laura is helping me translate that to over fences. The big guy I rode last week, her other horse Chase, went mysteriously lame over the weekend and then had a salmonella scare. Just a bit bothersome. I have a lot of respect for Chase: he's confident, gentle, and patient and a great confidence booster unless you're learning how to sit the trot (he has an unnaturally bouncy trot, like riding a perverted carousel, you have no idea how bad it is until you actually ride it, but if you can get through that and get him to really come together, it's lovely! But indeed a challenge!) but he was definitely willing to be the benevolent leader during our lesson last week when we went after some 2.5' verticals when he needed to be, bless him! So, yes, definitely worried about the Big Boy Chase.

Butters on the other hand, once you get him going, he's pretty satisfied with himself haha! And darn cute about it, too! Especially when he goes into "dressage pony" mode (will get video of that haha!)

The bit of him refusing was A) me cutting the corner too early and taking him to a really awkward spot and B) not really convincing him to jump it. Oops! He doesn't do bending lines like been-there-jumped-that Chase!

What was NOT caught on camera was Butters saving my bum as I proceeded to almost land in a fail pile. It was his first time going over the black and white vertical on the bounce line, and he OVERJUMPED it, and I did not go with it like I should have, was just about jumped out of the saddle, was halfway down his neck with my chest hanging over his head as he was about to go over the ground poles. He made a last minute decision to not jump the ground poles, thankfully, and reared up enough for me to get myself back in the saddle and yell out "SAVED!" and Laura to start laughing. It was pretty pathetic but would have made for some awesome/funny TV to show you guys haha!

Man, I never get my REALLY bad moments on camera, do I?!

A new years resolution: get as many fails on video as I can to match all the decent-to-stellar moments I get on video!

And Greta got a major makeover today by me and the fam. She doesn't like to roll and she hates mud, but she still got a good deal on her legs and chunks in her tail. Now her tail is all braided up and out of the way of mud and she's white again! Let's see how it holds! She has her no-or-go to trot evaluation next week. Yay!