Weekend, with video!

A wonderful and horsey long weekend - just the way I like it. :)

Saturday's jump lesson was a lot of fun and very instructive ... At the same time, ME and P and I invented a new sport/artistic pursuit: Interpretive Showjumping. It's like interpretive dance, just with jumping. Kind of the same way that dressage is like ballet with a horse. 

SATURDAY LESSON, a vignette

Starring MT as the patient, long-suffering teacher; ME and Grayson as Hay Grower and Hay Eater; P and Quest as Pragmatic and Quixotic, and RR and Apollo as Baffled and Rather-Put-Upon. 

MT: "Okay, ladies. I want you to jump this little vertical three times, then on the third time, turn left to do the bending line, then come back around this way and jump this little line, then come back up the vertical and jump the other bending line. Got it?"

ALL, INCLUDING HORSES: "Yes, MT! We get it!  We will jump those jumps in that order!" 

MT: "Okay!  ME, you're first?"

ME: "Yes, I am!  I shall show you my anti-rain interpretation!  Watch how I leap and turn to hold off the rain!"  *does nothing like what MT described*

MT: ... um ... next rider?

RR: "I present to you the conundrum of sexism and pickles in the twenty-third century! Yoiks and away!"  *does nothing like what ME did OR what MT described*

MT: well ... okay; next rider?  *winces in anticipation*

P: "¡Viva la revolución!  ¡Gerónimo!  Ice cream!"  *does something completely different from either previous rider and from original instruction*

MT: *facepalm*

FIN

All very fun and rather Dada.

Sunday's lesson was precluded by the sudden and unpleasant intrusion of life. Ah well. I ended up cleaning a lot and mending Apollo's winter blanket, the nice one, that the rotten paint horse tore all the way through not two weeks after I got it. 

And then today was dressage with our resident European.  Poor Apollo - not only did he have to do the hard stuff with me, but he had to do it with ORE too!  And he makes Apollo work harder than I can. So when I got back on after ORE schooled him a bit, Apollo was very quick off my leg but also quite annoyed that we weren't done. Boyfriend kicked out at my leg, then threw a tiny, pissy little buck!  Gasp!  It wasn't enough to even interrupt the ride, but ORE and I were both surprised and amused by it. It was quite clear that Apollo was d.o.n.e., done, and thinking of his pasture!  We finished on a good trot-canter transition to the left, on the correct lead and everything, y'all, and then a nice down transition, and we called it good. Sheesh. Bucking. ;)

And now, the time on sprockets when we laugh at the author!

Well. Here is the video of us jumping 3'3. Wanna see me get popped out of the tack and not do it right?  Here you go:

http://youtu.be/J0MD5cvqHEA

I promise, when we did it again this weekend, it went WAY better. :) I actually kept my leg on and my seat down and didn't pop my poor horse in the mouth. No video, though.  You'll just have to believe me when I tell you we did well. :)