For the dressage clinic, I rode a friend's horse. Her name is Tulpe and she's an amazing Oldenburg mare. Phenomenal mover. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot. BUT IT WAS EXHAUSTING. She is so hard to ride because she's extremely lazy (seriously, laziest horse I've ever been on, even including the Paints and Quarter Horses I've ridden, she is HARD to get going). Everyone told me beforehand that Vitor was only going to work on walk and trot and some simple movements with me, which I was happy about because I'd only ridden Tulpe a handful of times and never cantered her. After a little while he shocked me by telling her to canter her. Well... I tried anyway and she wouldn't do it. After a LONG time of fighting with her, I got so mad i whacked her REALLY hard with the whip, and off she went. It was a great but very tiring lesson. A LOT of fun. I definitely want to ride with Vitor Silva again in the future. He was amazing, and really made me work. The second day was much better. Tulpe cantered right off and we worked on a lot of diagonals, where Tulpe decided to show off how much she knows by doing lead changes across the whole arena. It was quite fun and amusing. Cheeky little mare. Anyway, she was a blast to ride and I'm very grateful I was given the opportunity to ride such a spectacular horse.
When Cruizer went back to work after the clinic he was an ASSHOLE. He wasn't going to give me an inch, and we ended up riding for an hour and a half the first day just working on speed control and acceptance to the leg and seat. There were some beginner lessons that came into the arena towards the end, and they were all over the place, and there was no riding a huge pissed off five year old in that crowd, so I waited for a few good trot strides and called it quits. He also had very bad ground manners. Which I HATE. He got smacked and yelled at a lot for his rude behavior. He knows better. I spent A LOT of time on ground manners when I got him because he is way too big to be doing anything even remotely dangerous or risky. The next day when I got him out to ride he was perfect. Quite the gentleman and suck-up like he usually is. He seemed apologetic for his brief insanity the day before. He rode extremely well, even doing pivots, forehand turns, and lead changes. I only rode for 30 minutes and then let him graze for awhile and let him know he was a good boy. He's been great ever since. Last time I rode him he was super quiet so I took him out and rode him around the arena a little bit outside, and was about to head down the driveway when one of the *cough dumber cough* boarders decided to shake her saddle pad directly behind him as he walked past. He leaped in the air and did the splits. She's like "Oh, I thought he was a good boy." I'm like "HELLO HE'S EFFING FIVE YEARS OLD AND NEVER BEEN TRAIL RIDDEN WTF ARE YOU DOING" my god. Yes, he's wonderful, but he is YOUNG, half TB, and has little experience riding outside of the arena walls. Not to mention, this particular boarder has a super dumb, spooky horse who is still terrified of everything in the aisle that she walks past twice a day every day for the past like six years. She should know better. Karma though, when she shook the pad at Cruizer, her horse also freaked and attempted to break the cross ties and flee the area. Sigh. People who don't think... So basically I was mad because here Cruizer was completely relaxed, enjoying roaming around in the grass and looking at everything, and happy and quiet as can be, when she ruins it and makes him think OMG OUTSIDE IS NOT SAFE. UGH. I immediately did some damage control to fix the situation and got a sweater to flap around, toss over him, thrown on his head, shake at him, etc and he relaxed and decided he was safe again. Still. I wish he could have just had no problems at all. I do think that he's going to love trail riding once he's fully convinced the world beyond his arena is safe to ride in.
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