As expected, I was not put on Murphy today. I had hoped for a chance to try out the new horse, Nelson, but someone else in the group got him while I was assigned Sammy. More than fine by me, since he’s so rarely used for our group and I really do like to ride him. It was kind of funny, too, as before the class I had chatted with another girl about the fact that with Malupin gone, we have very few small horses left and that of those left, Sammy and Fleur probably won’t be with us for too much longer. He’s 19 (12 years at the riding school), although he has always been very fit, and she’s getting on in years too. For those of us who like to ride smaller horses, this is definitely a problem, as all the new ones they buy seem to be either ponies or very large horses (several around 17 hands). I know they want horses that can carry a lot of weight, but to me it seems it would be more reasonable to go for smaller, sturdier horses, as they tend to be hardier anyway. The prejudice seems to be that heavier horses won’t perform well enough at dressage and jumping to be useful for the students beyond the lowest levels, but that’s certainly never been my experience of heavier horses. For one thing, both Sammy and Murphy have a fair bit of bone to them, being Irish mixes of some sort, and they do just fine.
In any case, I’ll have to keep hoping for the best as far as new horses for the stables are concerned. In the meantime, though, I had a pretty good ride on Sammy today. My biggest problems, the same as always on him, were keeping a centred seat and keeping myself upright. He’s incredibly good at pushing me off-centre with his sides, and for much of the lesson it felt as if my stirrups were uneven, though when I stopped to check them I really couldn’t find a major difference. He’s also quite good at pulling me forward unless I ride him on a fairly long rein. That works okay to start with, to get him moving forward, but he also needs a fair bit of framing by both hands and legs if he’s to put any effort in.
The exercise was very basic, and very useful. At first, we were just supposed to turn down the centre line and ride straight along it, focusing on keeping the horses straight and tracking properly. It really is true that properly riding a straight line at a walk is pretty much the hardest thing you can do. You wouldn’t believe how many things a horse can do to avoid moving straight ahead, with the right amount of impulse and forward-thinking. Sammy is particularly talented in the department of throwing out hindquarters and shoulders, sometimes at the same time. I also made the mistake of initially trying to frame him too much and losing all the momentum.
Once we started adding some trotting at the end, Sammy’s momentum improved quite a bit (he gets quite eager when he knows he’s supposed to trot or canter at a particular spot) and it was much easier to keep him straight, even when I was also supposed to ask him to flex his neck as well. I still struggled a bit with keeping myself upright enough, but I tried very hard through most of the class to think about breathing and about finding a deep seat. I managed so-so, I guess. It was difficult as I couldn’t seem to get my legs in a good position, and towards the end of the class my left leg started aching, possibly because Sammy is so wide (and, as I noted, good at pushing you off-centre in the saddle) and it added extra strain to the position I was trying to keep my leg in.
After a while, we exchanged the trotting for cantering. This was my first time in a long while cantering on someone else than Murphy, and apart from a reminder or two, I did quite well at keeping still in the saddle while cantering. Sammy is another horse I have had a hard time to keep still on before, as his canter tends to the ‘rocking-horse’ type unless he’s first allowed to gallop on at a fairly good pace. Today, there was no room for that, so for the first few rounds his canter wasn’t very good. But after a while he started to get warmed up, and I managed some quite good transitions (despite him being eager, I got him to wait for me and go into a very nicely prepared canter where I could really feel him starting with his hindleg) and some pretty decent stretches of cantering.
Overall, it was good for me to be on another horse, even if I missed riding Murphy. I had definitely gotten too used to just riding him and I had gotten a bit stuck with my riding too. I am hoping some variety over the next weeks (hopefully including a chance to try out Nelson) will prepare me to ride Murphy even better when I do get him again.