Riding A Walker (My Riding Journal)

Another Lesson, MANY Things Learned

Hey guys so I'm back and I am so sorry that a lot of these chapters are up late because I'm usually on my other account 😂 But I'm here to give you guys some details about what we learned on Saturday.

First, we tacked up and I got back on Dora again (yay!) When we first got on, we did the usual flat walk around the arena and she told us to switch directions. And you guys know how my last lesson went...when I started racking without thinking because Dora thought it would be fun? So Amanda told us we could all go at a slow rack, and we usually stayed at that pace but sometimes Dora would get frisky and go a little faster. Of course, I had to slow her down sometimes but she was pretty obedient. Except for the couple of times I thought I was gonna slide forward and over Dora's neck because she would throw her head down when I had to hold her back.

It makes me feel kind of bad because I don't like making horses snort. She was snorting and lowering her head when I had to hold her back. It makes me feel like I'm choking them, but I don't really know...if you guys could tell me what that means in the comments that would make me feel a lot better. And Amanda tells me to hold the reins at the red section because the reins are color coated.

Anyway, so we did a couple exercises and then she told us to do some barrels at a walk, ground poles at a walk, and the box (which is where you walk in through an entrance, come to a 'dead end' and turn your horse to leave out the entrance).

After we did that, she told us we were going to play a game called "Horsey Says". It's the same thing as "Simon Says", but on horseback. Sounds fun, right?

She would say things like "Horsey Says 360 degree turn to the right" and "Horsey Says slow rack" and things like that. She also caught a couple people doing things without her saying "Horsey Says" but I wasn't one of them! (For once)

Then she said "Horsey Says pull your horses into a show lineup" which is basically a line where all the horses are facing towards the instructor. We did a couple of stretches on the horse and then came the fun part...

"...emergency dismount!"

Oh. Crap.....

Of course, we only learned it at a stop for now but what you do is you drop both of your stirrups, grab the front of the saddle near where the horn is, swing your right leg over the hindquarters, and then put your belly on the saddle and your legs straight and even with your body, and then hop off onto the ground (without falling preferably)

And after that we went to the barn and untacked and we went home and ate cookies while we watched rainbow unicorns prance in our yard 🙂🙃🙂Just kidding. Here are some pictures of the lesson (sorry we didn't get many...)

And this one's my favorite 👇🏼

Alright well I may have a lesson this Saturday but it depends on how my Mimi is feeling because she is recovering from surgery and she would be the one to take me to it, but it all depends on how she feels. I'll let you guys know if I have one or not. Peace guys!