Dark December riding lesson

A few blogs ago I mentioned L's much-longed-for first riding lesson, she was 13 and it was a dream come true for her that she was being given the opportunity to learn to ride.

I had booked the last lesson of the day at the riding school, so I could take her after work on a Tuesday. It was a dark December evening and L was over the moon with excitement and nervousness.
We had already bought a riding hat and jodhpur boots, and L got into our car clutching the hat excitedly on her knees. The riding school is 25 minutes away, but because I hadn't driven the route for a long time, and I wasn't sure what admin we would need to complete upon arrival at the school, I decided to leave 45 minutes ahead of the booking time.

We were all smiles at the outset of our journey and we dashed through our little town and out onto the country roads towards the riding school. There's really only one major road in and out of A_____ and it's a nice, fast dual carriageway, but, oh dear, as we joined it the cars were completely backed up over a mile and a half outside A_____.
"Not to worry," I told L, "It's probably just a bit of rush hour traffic and we've given ourselves plenty of time."

We continued to chat eagerly about horses and how great it was that L was really, truly going to have riding lessons, but I could see the time ticking away and the traffic was just not moving.
We sat…and sat…and sat.

About 20 minutes before the lesson was about to start I rang the school and the cheery instructor told us not to worry and that it would be okay if we were a few minutes late.
Five minutes after the booking time, and still a long, long way away I rang again. The instructor was sorry, but the school would need to close soon. My heart fell and I could see from L's forlorn face that she was heartbroken. She was still clutching her riding hat on her knees and I've never seen anything sadder.

At the earliest opportunity, and an hour and a half after setting off, we managed to turn the car round to go home. I was gutted.
It turns out that a sequence of accidents on the roundabouts around A_____ completely snarled the whole area up and we were just caught in an unfortunate traffic jam. The following week, we were at the school 25 minutes early and L's lesson was brilliant.
She hasn't looked back.
Photo © J Venn

Mmmm, I smell wet riding boots

So, it was a beautiful day in May for a riding lesson. Actually, it was cold, the wind was blowing, the heavens had just opened and – even though we were in the inside school – it was dark, dull, and cold. Still, L was on her horse and looked happy.

The Saturday class contained seven ponies and riders; the warm up had gone well and L had cantered a good 20 metre circle into a large circle. It went well and she looked pleased.
The riders then practised accurate flat riding over off-centre poles. They were doing the exercise in rising trot and the point of the manoeuvre was to correctly steer their pony over the middle part of each pole. L and her pony Seamus did it very well. In fact, the instructor praised L for not being distracted by her pony's grunts and general noisiness.

Next, the exercise increased in difficulty. The riders had to trot their mounts over the first pole at the far side of the school, then take the pony out to the centre of the school where they had to go over a second pole, trotting a circle back around to take the centre pole again. Then they had to steer the horses back to the last pole which was further over, toward the edge of the school at the far end.
The instructor said it was quite a difficult manoeuvre and yet almost all the riders completed it without too many hitches. Of course, one of the other girls in the class, B, on Jasmine, had a hard time as the springy little bay just wanted to run and run, and then return to the back of the ride. B managed to complete the exercise by taking her pony in the opposite direction to the rest of the horses, but it's a good job her horse tack was secure as it looked like Jasmine just wanted to shake everything free, including her rider.

The last exercise involved trotting over a pole in the middle of the school, then cantering directly away and coming around again to canter over the pole for a second time, followed by cantering large around the school. It required, apparently, enormous levels of focus and control. Seamus trotted up amiably enough, but then couldn't make up his mind whether he wanted to trot or canter away after the first pole. Eventually, L gathered herself together and made him perform a good last canter.
All in all, the lesson went well. No one fell off, most of the diagonals were correct, and the exercises made the girls focus hard on where they were asking their ponies to go.
Sadly, by the end it was still cold and dull, and as we removed the horse tack, saddles, and bridles and returned them to the tack room at the end of the lesson, the heavens had opened.

Mmm, wet riding boots always smell so lovely in the car on the way home, don't they?