I’m alive!

I’m alive! I’m alive and uninjured!

I rode for the first time today since I broke my pelvis. I took Prize to the trainer who worked with her about a year and a half ago. I figured some adult supervision was in order. I didn’t think that she would be bad but I could also see myself totally wimping out if I tried to ride her alone the first time. Sometimes I get too in my head about what “might” happen instead of seeing the perfectly well-behaved horse in front of me.

He was tentative about her even though I said it had been a freak accident and she had been being really good up to that point. He put her in the round pen and did some basic ground work with her. She kept looking at him with a disgusted, “This is baby stuff!” look on her face. She really doesn’t like her lessons to be dumbed down. Then he tried some ground drills that she obviously remembered since he would start and she would move to the end position of the drill instead of doing all the steps in between. She really can be quite a smart-ass if she thinks you are insulting her intelligence. So he hopped on her in the round pen and rode for about a minute before deciding that she was fine to go to the big arena.

He rode her out there for a bit. He said that except for her canter departure (which I had been having problems with) she was better now than when he was working her daily. I got on her and she was good. She was lazy but good. She’s a big fan of trotting around a few times and then stopping to talk and rest. We worked on her collection a bit. He kept telling me to loosen my hips and swing my legs from the hips instead of from the knee when cueing her. I figured that would be the real test of the strength of my left leg. I think I did ok. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

As we were leaving I asked him to watch her load into the trailer. She will go into the trailer just fine. But then she needs to turn 45 degrees for the partitions to latch. When I ask her to do that she steps out of the trailer. She’ll go right back in but then back out. It is all very calm and non-stressed but annoying. He took her and lead her to the trailer. She walked right in. He asked her to step over and (of course) she stepped right over. I told him that I would be calling him to come over any time I needed to put her in the trailer from now on if it was going to be that easy.

So I think we are back in business. I may be ready pretty soon to start working with my sidesaddle. It has just been sitting in the barn since it came the week I got hurt.