Monday, September 5, 2011

Me and My Pony - A Wrinkle

I'm writing this entry on May 19th and Renny and I have had an unusual week.  So, on Saturday, Renny tripped and fell to both knees and I rolled off him and had to help him to his feet.  He stood stock still patiently waiting for me to help him out of the jam.  He was on page with being part of the team.  But it was our first fall!  We fell as a team.  Then on Monday, we had our very second jumping lesson together and he was doing a beautiful beautiful job.  He jumped gracefully, he wanted to canter to the jumps, he was fine with jumping 4 in a circuit.  But he was nervous because of that darn black cat who likes to hide behind the green gate.  And sure enough, as I was jumping Renny down the line, I could tell that Renny was bothered by something off the very first jump.  His head was lifted and his ears were searching.  By the second jump, he was definitely alert and sure enough he scooted out from under me like a bottle rocket and I hit the ground.  But good boy that he is, he returned immediately to me and we resumed our work.  But I was definitely nervous -- two falls in two rides.  But just last night, we had a riding lesson with 5 other riders and we were great -- we were back to being a team and trotted and cantered ground poles, travelled straight between cones at the sitting and posting trot.  Halting nicely.  I felt so relieved to finally have a solid ride between us and our two wrinkles!!  I've ridden him 121 times and only fallen twice so far -- we're doing good!