Bruce

The good news is that my pony did not trip in the concrete-like footing of the outdoor arena and break his leg.  The bad news is that he was a very bad pony like usual in Wednesday night lessons.

My friend H in the lessons with me is convinced that it is the Curse of the Wednesday Night Lesson that I am experiencing, since she has been riding with me before and has seen the sweet horse that is Walker.  I have a different theory:

My parents have a friend named John.  John is a very nice man, and he did a lot of things for me and the other kids that lived next door to us.  He built a bridge over a huge ditch so that we could come over into his yard, and he also let us play with all the animals that he kept there.  But when John drank, he became another type of man altogether.  Not violent or aggressive - just a completely different person.  And my parents and all their friends refer to this person as Bruce.

On Wednesdays nights, I don't ride a horse named Walker.  I ride a horse named Bruce.

Tonight was not a complete waste however because we did work on a couple techniques to improve Bruce's bad behaviour.  He does a lot of things on Wednesday nights that he never does at any other times, but he also does a lot of things that he does do at other times, except that he does them more severely and dangerously on Wednesday nights.  For instance, he likes to drop his head below the bit.  He does this frequently, but on Wednesday nights, he will put his head practically to his chest, and even if I try to wrench it up (as my instructor tells me to do), he just braces against it.  He sometimes throws his head around and does what I call "the hops" - which are a precursor to a rear, but I never let it get that far.  He bolts as well of course, and for those who say that a horse follows his nose have never met Bruce.  He is perfectly capable of cantering at full speed down the arena with his head ripped to one side.  I know.  Because I do it every Wednesday.

Tonight we worked on anticipating the bolts, which we do every week of course.  But today we had a mini breakthrough.  Every time I'm going down the long end of the arena and he prepares to misbehave in that way, my instructor tells me to "open the outside rein and drive my leg/spur into his ribs to push him around".  I was opening my outside rein, but applying my inside leg.  In Walker-land, if you want to turn left, you push him over with your right leg.  Apparently, in Bruce-land, if you want to do a tight circle, you pull him with the outside rein and shove his ribcage over with the outside leg as well.  Unfortunately, the part that got lost in translation was the "drive my leg into his ribs" part.  For those of you anatomy buffs out there, horses tend to have ribs on both sides of their body so not too descriptive! Perhaps it's just common sense, but clearly not to me.

Despite another practically wasted lesson, I did get to try out my new thermal socks which are fantastic and bound to be my best friend when Winter actually arrives. :)

Bring it on, Winter!