Amazing Day

Ok, so last week I was pretty busy. My bosses were out of town, and the other instructor was out of town, so I spend the entire week running camp AND teaching all the lessons. This resulted in 12 hour days all week.

Fortunately I have an amazing friend who was willing to ride Taters all week. It was fabulous because she was riding while I was teaching lessons, so I got to see every ride! It was very difficult to concentrate on the lessons that I was teaching, but it was so awesome to see someone else riding my horse and doing an amazing job!

She did a lot of cantering, which is good because for whatever reason cantering is not a strong point for me. I am not a huge fan of going super fast (but I own an OTTB...yeah, I know). Anyway, she jumped her a few times, and cantered her around a lot and it was great. It was great because seeing her doing it and not dying totally gave me the confidence to believe that I can do it too.

So I was FINALLY able to ride my horse again on Sunday and I took a lesson with my friend. My friend Bri is a quality instructor who is very knowledgable, and I do not get nervous when I ride with her. Things went wonderfully! She fit me in early in the day so no one was there yet, then half way through people started showing up, but they were people who I knew would not judge me and are big Taters supporters. It kept me relaxed and focused and we got some great stuff accomplished!

We jumped with no refusals. I KNEW the reason why I had been getting refusals my first few jumps for my last lesson was nerves. I felt so confident going up to the jumps when it was just me and Bri (and some of my other non-judgemental friends). We did great and we jumped a line STRAIGHT with perfect striding. My horse is so amazing.

I have a dressage lesson tomorrow, hopefully I can stay calm. The dressage trainer is very good and knows her stuff, and the lesson is mid afternoon when everyone is there. So considering my nerves, and the fact that the horses don't get turned out on Mondays, it is a recipe for a horrible lesson, but I am going to try and stay calm and think about how expensive the lesson is and how I need to make the most out of it! haha.