Saintly old men

There's a lot to be said for saintly old men. My confidence takes a knock when I only jump once every other week, so it's a relief to have a pony I can really trust when my instructor starts to crank the jumps up.

Okay, crank the jumps up means maybe Novice, but it looks big when you're that close to the ground!

My anxiety was completely out of scale to the jumps, but with the mighty Dodge pony to carry me, I managed to get around despite my overwhelming urge to crawl up his neck and hang on to his ears. It's a bad habit I developed as a kid in the hunter ring and have never managed to lose.

I love Dodger. He just ignored me and went over despite my hesitation and sometimes wiggly body. My previous lesson was on the draft cross Coco. This was the horse I was half leasing when I made the fateful decision to go horse shopping. I love that horse, he's sweet and honest as the day is long, but we're just not a personality match. Our styles clash so badly that it's not fun for either of us. Riding him made me long for my princess.

The princess has another horse trial this weekend, running at Beginner Novice again. Hopefully she'll build off her successful outing at the beginning of the month and continue to make my trainer happy. I hope my trainer is having fun with her, because I sure enjoy taking her cross country.

I'm counting the days until I see her again. Just a month to go!