5th lesson (Henry)

Had a new experience tonight! I rode a pony :oD Well, a 13.2hh Haflinger called Henry.

Henry is usually only ridden in the kids classes, and he has all kinds of evasions which go with that. Not that I blame him - imagine being kicked and kicked to go forward, but then being jagged in the mouth every stride.

It was very peculiar riding him. I mean Pinto isn't that much taller, but he is so much wiiiiiiider he takes up my leg, with Henry because he was so much narrower I felt that my leg was just dangling in mid air. I've seen other people who are taller than me (I'm only 5') ride Henry, and their response is to hike their stirrups up. I don't know how they can balance!

Back to the lesson...

Warm up in walk and trot was interesting, and I came across Henry's most annoying evasion - he stops to poop every 5 minutes! And some times he just slams on the anchors, lifts his tail and just stands there.

After the first couple of times I tapped him smartly with a short stick, and voila! no more stopping.

Henry has a really weird trot, wrong and correct diagonals feel completely different, to the point where the wrong daigonal is practically unridable because the movement is so bizzare!

Most of the lesson was concentrating on the use of direct and indirect rein and walking in circles... which was pretty boring.

However I did get quite a good canter at the end, even if I did had to tell Henry to go at the beginning.

Quite pleased with this lesson, even if it was a bit boring!