Changes in latitude

By this time you're used to me not posting very often, yes?

So we are in Tennessee!  People, dogs, cats, and horse too.   The barn I'd planned to keep Apollo at turned out to be a lemon, so I went with Plan B and am boarding with the teacher I chose.  She happened to have a stall slot open up right when I needed one, and I'm really glad she did.  All her horses (small barn - 7 horses total) are healthy, happy, and in good shape, which wasn't necessarily true for the horses at the other barn.  So I'm pleased with where I am, even though it's more expensive.  Apollo is safer there, and I'm secure in knowing he'll get good care when I'm not there.

The barn at the top of the hill

The new place is on a hill (like so much of Chattanooga ...).  The barn with the stalls and the tack/hay/feed area is most of the way to the top of the hill.

Halfway down the hill is a secondary barn, not used for horses at the moment, that has the office, wash rack, and small indoor arena.  Sorry; no photo.

Down at the bottom of the hill is the jump field and the dressage court field.  It's not huge, but it's plenty for jumping.

Teacher and her husband setting some jumps

Teacher getting ready to video a different horse for sale

I hopped on for a flat ride on Saturday while teacher's daughter rode over some jumps - Apollo was excellent, of course.  :)   No big deal to be in a totally new place with another horse doing all kinds of things right there.  Just business as usual.  See?

I didn't really even need to longe him.

EARS!  Love this view.

So ... we jumping the colored poles or what, mom?

I also got to take Apollo off on his first little trail ride!  Suddenly I remembered what's awesome about TN, from the saddle.  The scenery was gorgeous, even just in the little area we were in.  Apollo was a star, too, especially for not having a lot of exposure to this kind of forest.  He just calmly followed the little mare in front of him and didn't freak about anything.  See?

Tired of Apollo's ears yet?  TOO BAD!

I adore this photo.  Gorgeous scenery, gorgeous horse.

Seriously, we had a great ride.  Sunday we jumped a little.  Horse and rider both need to get back in the swing of this jumping thing.  ;)  It went better when I remembered how to use my leg, for sure.  New teacher's approach is different from MT's, but there is a lot of good stuff to learn there.  She pointed out that Apollo needs to relax better, be more comfortable, etc - we'll start doing some little things on the ground to help him out with that, and I'm incorporating more bending and flexing into our warmup.

I'm seriously grateful to everyone at the Mitts' for the base of learning that I have.  I feel like I have a really useful toolbox to work from, as well as an eye for what other tools will be useful and what won't be.  (Not that I have found any that aren't since moving here, you understand.)  

Can't wait to keep on riding and jumping and learning - there's a little schooling show coming up mid-November that I'm planning on tagging along to, and that should be fun.  :)

So anyway, further updates as things progress, but yeah.  Life is fine.  More to tell.

Looking forward to the future