I also talked to Trainer A about Theo's return to sanity. The look on her face when she realized when that Ultrafire kicked in was amazing. I am under orders to never, ever do that again. Ever. I think I can agree with that.
She also snapped off some beautiful pictures of me in my new Arctic Horse Gear skirt.
I'm so in love with this thing. I see some days with 23* as a high coming up and I am going to get so much use out of my skirt. The girl that was sharing my lesson said she felt under dressed and didn't know it was a formal event.
Theo is back to being my steady eddy partner and things are chugging along as they should. Today we worked on trotting through a set of trot poles, transition to walk at the last pole, then trot right away through another set of trot poles. It required him to tuck his butt and keep it tucked to manage stepping over things and doing transitions at the same time. When she added a third set of trot poles, he really had to lift to manage it.
You can't see it under the skirt, but I was in my western saddle. It's the first time Trainer A has seen the saddle. The stirrups have two placements and I was experimenting with having them in the further back position. The conclusion was nope, that throws me forward. And I knocked myself on the pommel in a really unpleasant way once. It also left the cinch uncovered by the fenders and it wasn't comfortable for me. They've gone back to their forward position and I'll be riding in it again tomorrow. For a western saddle, she's happy with where it puts me. It wants me more in the back seat than my English saddles, but that's expected. It's not a dramatic chair seat and it's not interfering with my riding. She thinks the treeless thing is pretty cool. I may have her take a spin in it, take a feel.
Theo is still happy as a clam in this saddle and with being back in work. He was starting to tucker out a bit by the end of my lesson. Not a surprise, since Trainer A worked him a bit this morning. It's the first time in a month that he didn't gallop with bucking and farting down his field after my ride. He trotted a bit, shook his head, and enjoyed a big roll instead. We may have found the bottom finally. This means his leaser can get back on him tomorrow. She hasn't ridden him in weeks between cancelled rides due to weather and Theo being a freaking kite. As Trainer A put it, she just didn't want to deal with that. Nope.
Tomorrow I have another flat lesson in the western tack, then Friday we jump in my private lesson. My jumping still unnerves a lot of the adult ladies that ride in the middle of the day, so we'll keep that one to an empty ring. Theo will be so thrilled. He's also getting his grain back. I don't want him to really run out of gas in the tank. Now that his brains are back between his ears, we can slowly, carefully turn the power back up. His new supps seem to be filling the gaps without sending him through the ceiling. First his CarbGuard, then his alfalfa will go back up to their usual amounts.
I don't know who looked more pleased at the end of our lesson today: me, mi papi, or Trainer A.
Sounds like you're making great strides. :-)
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