Rode Colonel

I rode Colonel yesterday at Roberts request. There is someone who might lease him. I gave him a good lunge going mostly to the right. Lots of transitions and cantering until he quit acting like an idiot. It actually went really well. Then the time came to hop on him. I have to say I felt sick. This was faster than I had planned on starting him but I needed to know how he'd be to canter. I can't say he wasn't a jerk, but I also can't say it was especially terrifying. Scary, yes, but terrifying, no. I only cantered him under saddle to the left. It was like riding one of those pennies that you set rolling down those funnel shaped plastic things at the mall. Kept falling further and further in, round and round we went. He was leaning so badly that I couldn't stay in the center of the saddle and still stay straight up and down. I thought I must have rolled the saddle putting too much weight in one stirrup. Nope, he and the saddle were still perfectly in line, just happened to be most of the way sideways. I'm actually pretty pleased with how upright I managed to stay, not that pleased with my inability to feel where the horse is relative to the saddle but hey, it scared me into keeping off the stirrups like a good girl. Not that those stirrups were of much help anyway. I left them quite long.

In the end, he really only threw one buck, and basically didn't flip his head or do that weird cock your head to the side and stick it up in the air at the same time thing. He did pull but not all that violently. He did try to run us into a wall but didn't quite manage it. He was tense and downhill and a little rough to ride but I always had the sense that we could stop if I wanted to, and he wasn't going anywhere near the kind of speeds I know he's capable of, possibly because we just did circles and he didn't get a chance to go straight down the arena.

He didn't break a sweat.

Star is making progress stretching the right hind leg in the trot. I had a huge fight with her about trotting to the right and she cantered an absurdly tiny circle and refused to break back into the trot. I think it goes without saying that she cantered this circle with her head and tail so high in the air they were practically touching. After I won the fight we did some good work and I'm pleased with her progress so far.

I took Tilly out too. The arena was crowded so I just walked her around and reminded her about where she needs to be relative to my shoulder. It was good practice. The other horses were very distracting/upsetting for her but in the end we reached an understanding.