Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Lesson Recap: Schoolmaster Life

Y'all. I can't even. It has been a goal for ACTUAL YEARS to try to get a schoolmaster on lease, even if only for a summer, to lesson and learn on. With the exception of a pretty well schooled NSH rescue (who by the way just celebrated his 30th birthday and 11 years with his perfect family 🥳), I've owned pretty much exclusively young/project horses. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been able to ride something that knows more than me - living in a perpetual cycle of green horses has been rough. Like don't get me wrong, it's taught me an incredibly valuable school set, and Ruby and I are creeping along at a glacial pace, but I KNEW learning from a horse more educated than me would be so valuable. And somehow, that situation fell into my lap. 

She is the best. 


I took Emmy out to a lesson with my trainer last weekend, and it was phenomenal. Was it always pretty? Absolutely not. We had a lot of unintentional changes, emphasis on the flying 🤣 my half halt needs to be recalibrated so I don't get lawn darted because homegirl has a GOOD STOP in there. Picking up the right lead is hard - she'd rather counter canter for dayssssss. But wow did I learn so much. And now I know that feeling I am trying to replicate on Ruby. In fact, I went home after the lesson Saturday and DH watched Ruby schooling and commented that her canter looked more like Emmy's than he'd ever seen (which I was actively working on lol). 



My trainer asked me what my show plans were for this summer - and I'm not sure I have any, sigh. Wasn't necessarily budgeting for having this many horses and dogs 🙈 I want to show but I don't want to go into debt to do it, and I'm just not sure it's in my budget this year 😭 then she asked me what my pie in the sky goals were and it's just..... Leave a horse show NOT in tears sometime? Is that too much to ask for? Apparently 🤣



Ran through basically all of 2nd level at home on my own minus the medium trot - struggling to find different gears in the trot so that's homework. 



I don't even know that I have a point really. Just had these lovely photos and some video and I am excited to have Emmy in my life. But simultaneously bummed because money is a thing and I can't take her out there to do ALL THE THINGS.