Weekend recap: picture overload

Published on by Amanda C

First: on Friday I got the one pro picture that I ordered from our event. My experience with the photographer was… interesting and unusual to say the least, but that is a long and winding rant story for another day. Until then, I present SUPER WATER PONY!

Last Thursday’s dressage lesson was a hard one for Henry (we’re starting to ask for more difficult work from him) so I decided to keep the weekend pretty low key to give his brain a break. He tries so hard that sometimes he gets flustered and upset when he’s learning new stuff but can’t quite figure it out, thus I wanted to just take all the pressure off and let him do things that are fun and easy. Saturday my fabulous photo-taking friend Amy was able to come back out, and I really wanted to get some pictures of things for upcoming blog reviews, so I just did a short hack out in the field then I got off and we played photo shoot.

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My face… what IS that?
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There isn’t a horse in the land that loves his teefers more than this one
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slowly but surely getting steadier in the contact
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Sometimes my body and hands relapse into their old life
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and then they’re like “Oh yeah, we do different things now”
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always pat your pony
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Now we both have teefs!

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I wasn’t going to share any of the non-riding pictures until later, but my pony looks so darn handsome I can’t help but pick a few. Sorrynotsorry.

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On Sunday I put his hackamore on, tossed on my Ogilvy pad to spare my lady bits, and hopped on for a bareback hack. One of the recurring themes in my dressage lessons is that I tend to get stiff and tense in my hips, which in turn translates to the horse. I’ve been working a lot on loosening my hips, following the movement, not gripping with my upper thigh etc. Bareback, especially on my bouncy ball of a horse, is fantastic for that. You grip and tense up – you bounce and fall off and die. You loosen your thighs and let your hips go with the motion – you’re golden. So we spent about 20 minutes just walking around the property then did 10-15 minutes of flatwork in the field. No bit and no saddle shines a really big spotlight on how effective your aids are, and Henry was super. He is such an honest horse that he really goes however well you ride him. Which I believe is true of the vast majority of horses, but it’s especially true of this one, pretty much 100% of the time. He teaches me just as much as I teach him, if not more.

At the end I tried to get him to turn his head so I could get a picture. He wasn’t that interested.

So I bribed him with a cookie.

And got blurry shark horse. Picture fail.

Aside from that it was a fairly uneventful weekend, which is kinda what I needed and wanted after the previous week. I did manage to gather all my sale stuff together, clean it, and get pictures. I’ll have all that up tomorrow.

We also put our Christmas tree up! SO kept grumbling something about me having too many horse ornaments. I dunno what the heck he’s talking about, personally.

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36 thoughts on “Weekend recap: picture overload”

  7. First, I just love that bridle. I wants one, too.

    And secondly, I have the opposite problem with our tree- all the ornaments are ‘boy’ ornaments. Like, Indiana Jones, Rocket Ships, UNC stuff (ugh), etc. I’ve started asking his family to get me ornaments for Christmas so I can slowly catch up 🙂

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  8. I love your xmas ornaments! We don’t do a tree at our house because of our crazy cats. Your eventing pic is awesome! I’m curious to hear your photographer story… 🙂

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  15. Aw, Pig loves his teefs too. He “grins” during work on contact. If he isn’t grinning, he’s grinding his teeth. I guess grinning is his happy look?

    One thing that helped me relax my hips/thighs (something I still, and always will struggle with)? Taking my legs off the horse. I pull my leg off, and thing about pointing my knee at the ground to lengthen my thigh. My heels come up, my lower leg comes back, and my thighs lengthen. It’s a good exercise if you, like me, tend to shove your heels down, pull your knees up to your ears, and clench your thighs. 🙂

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    1. Trainer says that from the judge’s spot at C a grimace looks a lot like a grin. Luckily a grimace comes naturally to me with dressage. Maybe that’s Henry’s grin/grimace too. 😉

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  16. Tell the SO to get over it – your 30-something year old ornament collection continues to grow. ;-D There actually seem to be some missing. Besides, your ornaments are now collectibles and worth a bit of change. Oh, well. Maybe he should have his own tabletop tree. 😉

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  17. 1.) That is the raddest bridle I’ve ever seen.
    2.) You and Henry look like Dover models in the “Oh yeah, we do different things now” picture!!!

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  18. great pics! Henry looks great – like he’s really working hard for it. also – i totally get the ‘too tense in the hips’ thing – it’s such a struggle ugh….

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