The Confidence Booster

I didn't write about my second fall this summer, but it wasn't fun. I only wound up riding maybe about 10 times this summer, and was left on the ground twice (one of those two being a pretty bad fall). That never makes you feel very good about getting back on again.

So last weekend I went to ride Hank again, but I was just dreading getting back on again. Before I got on him, I lunged him for the first time since the summer I got him. I was impressed with how well he actually did for not being lunged in almost two years. (Aside from me tripping over a feeder in the middle of the field and him proceeding to gallop around the field himself as fast as he could for several minutes.)

Finally, after having to tell myself several times that getting back on wouldn't be a big deal, I finally did. We had a good few gallops across the field and it was a nice "confidence booster". I'm more than ready to get on the next time I have time, but I feel like that is never!

Emergency Dismount

I haven't written in a while, but I finally have a good story and time to write!

My friend Shelbi and I were riding and after we ran out of sticks to jump over we still wanted to ride more so I decided to ride Hank bareback. Bad idea of course, I've now ridden him three times seriously bare back and been dumped three times! Yay! (I wrote horses bareback all the time when I was younger but I seem to have an unlucky streak with Hank!)
So he was being fine and I was galloping around the field by and all of a sudden he started bucking. Since he'd been acting good I wasnt really paying the best attention and by the time I'd realized what was happening he was galloping, well pretty fast! Shelbi was standing in the field holding her horse and I managed to get him to turn enough to head towards her horse thinking he'd get to him and stop. Wrong! Prepared for him to jump to a complete stop when we got to her I was so not ready for what happened next. Instead of stopping he slammed right into her horse and spun around and kept going. I'm just claiming that I pretty much did and emergency dismount when we hit her horse but who is really prepared to smash into another horse?! And the best is I was riding in short shorts (don't ask why!) so my bare sweaty legs stuck to his sweaty skin and half of me catapulted off and the other half stuck. Oww what a stretch! This was sunday and now 5 days later I can still feel it when I walk. Then I had to spend another 30 minutes riding the bucks out of him, but I think we were successful in the end. Now to try again when my legs recover!

Hank got a snazzy new halter. I think he needs to be a halter model; you know you think so to!