it was dusk when i arrived, and i was both excited and a little nervous, because i'd never done a group lesson at MC, and these are very highly tuned riders with a lot of know how. also, i was training with an instructor i'd neever had before, Lindsey. so it was a big night anyway. i was mounted on Napoleon, a spry little pony, gray with little speckles (almost flea bitten) that my roommate just fell in love with. Napoleon is about 14hh, to my disappointment! however, pony though he may be, Napoleon is awesome. brave as a lion, lots of adjustability, and very responsive. i rode him once before, and i really do like him. we rode in the "back ring," where there are jumps set up and it's nearest to the edge of MC property. there were 6 in the group i believe, and Lindsey had us warm up at the walk and trot doing shoulder-ins and lateral work. in fact, she requested we do bending to the inside, and NO ONE'S horse was being responsive, hence the shoulder-in exercise. this is when, say you are tracking left, you squeeze your outside leg at the girth to bump the horse's shoulders off the rail toward the middle of the arena, and use your inside leg slightly behind the girth to keep the haunches on the rail. instead of moving on 2 tracks, the horse will be on 3 tracks. (this is hard to describe without going on for hours). the point of the exercise is to get the horse supple and listening to aides.
i enjoy riding Napoleon because he is quite sensitive, and easy to bend one way or the other. anyway, then we did some canter warm up, circling a tree that grows in the middle of the ring, and doing steering exercises. it was pretty dark by now, and suddenly there was an outbreak of sharp, high pitched yelping and howling. the horses immediately went on hig alert, and Lindsey quickly and calmly ordered us to halt. our horses stood grouped together, nostrils flared, eyes wide and ears pricked, and i could feel the coiled power underneath me as Napoleon tensed for fight or flight. all the horses were very nervous; and it is NOT a fun feeling being on top of a horse that's ready to essentially flip out. lindsey pointed to the top of the hill and there was a group of large coyotes snapping and barking, looking down at us.
normally i would have thought this was phenomenally cool, but horses are prey animals, and they clearly thought the canines resembled two headed sabertooth tigers. i had a tight rein on Napoleon, being no stranger to a spooking horse. once the horses had grown used to the racket the coyotes were making, we resumed our lesson. every now and then someone's horse would throw in a buck or a nervous hop, but my trusty pony held it together until...
we were in the middle of simple canter lead changes, making a figure-8 at the canter, trotting through the center and changing leads to go in the other direction after X. it was now completely dark, and unfortunately the dogs had moved in closer to the arena. they were snapping twigs right outside the rail, and the horses were riled up again. i was changing leads to the right in our second half of the figure 8, which brought us down very close to the end of the ring where the dogs were standing. Napoleon surged forward, with a few weird hops and threw his head up to evade the bit, and kind of bolted. i sat tight, and Lindsey barked at me to halt him and force him to back up. we were fine, Napoleon is a sensible creature and not one to truly try and dislodge his rider, but i'm telling you the adrenaline that comes when a horse spooks is intense! it was all over in a few moments, but it happened several times. another student's horse reared once or twice, and that was the extent of it. after that, lindsey had us stay in the upper end of the arena to finish the lesson, but no one fell or got attacked so all in all it was fine. quite the adventure though!
as we headed back to the barn, napoleon was dancing and finding excuses to spook, as it was dark and there were lots of nature noises happening. owls, frogs and the occasional bark had him huffing and prancing. lindsey told me i had an impressive seat, and kept great control, which was a great compliment in my mind!
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| ain't this the damn truth |
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