Nervous Nellie

It's been a month since I've been on the back of a horse so E and I took a quick trip out to the barn today so I could ride. As we progressed in the tacking-up process, I became more and more nervous about climbing on - which kind of surprised me. But I made myself go ahead anyway. It helped my confidence a little that he performed well in the round pen prior to saddling up.

Once we started, I kept Curly to a walk, which he then frequently tried to turn into a stop. He was not minding my (admittedly often imprecise) cues and made me work at steering him. But I persevered and ended up where I wanted the majority of the time. I could see that I need to work on being more consistent. I found it hard to keep all the things I needed to do in my head. Riding is hard!

I was happy that he didn't try to catch up to Monte or try to break into a trot when E and her horse passed by at a faster speed. Of course, I should have known he'd stick to his walk; it's not exactly like he enjoys going fast or doing arena work in general.

Curly was sweaty when we finished but I think the heat of the day had more to do with that rather than the intensity of our riding session. :-)

At the end of the short ride (25 minutes), I was still nervous but I had shown myself that I could do it....and that I wouldn't necessarily fall off. Overall, a success.