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Tomorrow is another day...
Dec. 18th, 2006 10:45 amSo, my saddle came!!! It arrived safely and it's in good condition. I rode in it in my lesson on Saturday, and it seems to fit me well. My only minor complaint was that it was a bit hard to take my leg off and reapply (by take off I mean way off for a good "bump") because I apparently try to move my leg forward instead of just out to the side away from the horse (c'mon, she's fairly wide and I'm not that flexible anymore) and the saddle said "No, no, your leg doesn't belong up there."
I'm very happy with it.
Fontana's canter is getting better and we started a new excercise- volte figure 8's. We do a volte on one half of the short side, change directions around G, and do another 10 meter on the other half of the short side. Oh boy, do my failures to change the bend show up as way obvious here. I like that though- at least when you know what's wrong you feel like you have a better chance to correct it. I learned more about Fontana's awesomeness- that her sensitivity allows me to change the bend subtly and rider her deeper into corners simply by slightly shifting my weight to the side. My "gotcha" is that I sometimes step into one stirrup and then collapse my upper body, thus rendering the step ineffective and making me into a sloppy, dumpy thing. The other gotcha is the disconcerting flying changes at the canter, partly from her sensitivity and my slight weight shifts, and partly from the still-getting-built-up back muscles.
I went to look at a horse- pretty color- she was a black bay and very shiny in spite of it being winter- those horse vacuum thingies must do a better job than I gave them credit for. She seemed pretty sweet and kind of cute, and that's about all I can say for her. Very average movement, made worse by the fact that the woman showing her to me is a h/j trainer and didn't make her move out on the lunge at all. I had her canter the filly and when she broke back to trot and was actually a bit forward, the trainer tried to slow her back down to her sleepy jog. "NOOOOOoooooooo..... " I said, diving toward them in slow motion (I couldn't help myself) "Let her go!". The filly seemed pretty small- she might have measured 15.3 but she looked more like a 2 year old than a 3 year old- she was supposed to be a TB/Hannoverian cross but Nadia said she looked more like a quarter horse, and I had to agree. Seemed sound and sweet and fairly priced, but not a good enough mover. So the quest continues. It's so hard to wait for things in the mail (videos, dvds, etc). I wish everyone would just upload things to the web or e-mail them, but then sometimes that's horrid because you get people that don't do a high enough quality video so you get to see a tiny, blurry, pixellated horse shaped thing going in a stop frame animation which may or may not add up to an actual gait, depending on how many frames have been eliminated in an effort to save space. Also, what is up with some of the photos people take of their horses? Stop the car, get out, and use an actual camera to take a photo from the side of the horse while a friend holds it. Lacking this, tie the horse to the fence or a tree, and, still remaining motionless and perpendicular to the side of the horse (please, try to make sure you are both on the same plane and that the ground is mostly level), take a picture. Be sure to include the ENTIRE horse in the frame. No, don't use your cell phone. No, not from your moving vehicle, GOD YOU'RE DRIVING WATCH OUT!!! I don't care that you rolled the window down...I said from the side...not from up the hill...and no, don't take it when that other horse is standing in front of him....aaaarrghhh....
I'm very happy with it.
Fontana's canter is getting better and we started a new excercise- volte figure 8's. We do a volte on one half of the short side, change directions around G, and do another 10 meter on the other half of the short side. Oh boy, do my failures to change the bend show up as way obvious here. I like that though- at least when you know what's wrong you feel like you have a better chance to correct it. I learned more about Fontana's awesomeness- that her sensitivity allows me to change the bend subtly and rider her deeper into corners simply by slightly shifting my weight to the side. My "gotcha" is that I sometimes step into one stirrup and then collapse my upper body, thus rendering the step ineffective and making me into a sloppy, dumpy thing. The other gotcha is the disconcerting flying changes at the canter, partly from her sensitivity and my slight weight shifts, and partly from the still-getting-built-up back muscles.
I went to look at a horse- pretty color- she was a black bay and very shiny in spite of it being winter- those horse vacuum thingies must do a better job than I gave them credit for. She seemed pretty sweet and kind of cute, and that's about all I can say for her. Very average movement, made worse by the fact that the woman showing her to me is a h/j trainer and didn't make her move out on the lunge at all. I had her canter the filly and when she broke back to trot and was actually a bit forward, the trainer tried to slow her back down to her sleepy jog. "NOOOOOoooooooo..... " I said, diving toward them in slow motion (I couldn't help myself) "Let her go!". The filly seemed pretty small- she might have measured 15.3 but she looked more like a 2 year old than a 3 year old- she was supposed to be a TB/Hannoverian cross but Nadia said she looked more like a quarter horse, and I had to agree. Seemed sound and sweet and fairly priced, but not a good enough mover. So the quest continues. It's so hard to wait for things in the mail (videos, dvds, etc). I wish everyone would just upload things to the web or e-mail them, but then sometimes that's horrid because you get people that don't do a high enough quality video so you get to see a tiny, blurry, pixellated horse shaped thing going in a stop frame animation which may or may not add up to an actual gait, depending on how many frames have been eliminated in an effort to save space. Also, what is up with some of the photos people take of their horses? Stop the car, get out, and use an actual camera to take a photo from the side of the horse while a friend holds it. Lacking this, tie the horse to the fence or a tree, and, still remaining motionless and perpendicular to the side of the horse (please, try to make sure you are both on the same plane and that the ground is mostly level), take a picture. Be sure to include the ENTIRE horse in the frame. No, don't use your cell phone. No, not from your moving vehicle, GOD YOU'RE DRIVING WATCH OUT!!! I don't care that you rolled the window down...I said from the side...not from up the hill...and no, don't take it when that other horse is standing in front of him....aaaarrghhh....
