I am so out of my routine of posting Tuesday evening or Wednesday that it isn’t funny. No wonder I don’t get much else done on time either, and its all a sure sign that I really need a lot more equi-theraphy than just once a week right now.

The lesson was, of course, good. Of course in the sense that I was on Murphy, so its hard for it not to be good. Even when, as the case was this time, Murphy wasn’t all that enthusiastic. In fact, to start with I was worried he was a bit sick, as he was very sluggish and kept trying to stop. It didn’t really feel like disobedience either, and until he had a poop in a corner his sides felt a bit bloated. The poop was fine, though, and the instructor took a listen to his gut and pronounced an all clear. He remained a little ‘off’, though, but I would guess he was just a bit tired.

Or maybe he was grumpy because Nelson was being a pest in the stables. He kept standing with his head across into Murphy’s stall, jealous of the attention (and the treats), and when I turned Murphy around after tacking him up he tried to take a bit out of him. ;P I bet he’s in trouble next time they’re out together.

The theme for the jumping remained the same as it has been for a while; getting the right canter following a jump. And my problems remained the same. That is, I have a sucky sense for which canter I’ve got (especially on rock-solid Murphy who, despite having a bad canter, has an extremely solid bad canter which feels the same whether its regular canter or counter-canter) and if I start thinking too much about getting the right canter after a jump, I revert to bad old habits of doing too much. Right now, I am not at the stage where I can combine the ‘don’t overdo it’ instructions with the ‘prepare the canter you want’ instructions. As soon as I get told to sit in a certain way before the jump, or to shift my weight in a certain way, I get all tense and contorted.

Eventually, I mostly gave up (I need a private lesson—or 20—focusing on just that) and concentrated on the lines and the jumping, and that part went very well. Several times my instructor commented that I was riding very boldly (but while still keeping it simple and not overworking it), which probably was because I was concerned about Murphy’s lack of ‘oomph’ so I tried to be very assertive and encouraging. It worked quite well and he certainly seemed to like the jumping. In particular, the last exercise, which was coming out of a corner and going onto a curved line along the length of the arena, went nicely. I even got the correct canter between the two jumps most of the time. Of course, I couldn’t tell. ;P