First lesson of the semester!

I had a pretty good first lesson this semester. I started out on Dakota, a large chestnut pony, and then got to ride Barney for the rest of the lesson. 

According to Teresa, Dakota is young (I suspected either that he was young or he was very poorly trained even before Teresa told me.), willing, and somewhat stupid. She said he wouldn't do anything bad at all, and he didn't. Overall, he was a fairly decent ride. He was a little bouncy, but that was okay. He also refused to go in a straight line, so I really had to work with him. He had trouble picking up the right lead, but that could have been something that I did wrong. He picked up the left lead perfectly on the first try. 

We did a lot of work on the flat, basically just going through the gaits. Teresa had us ride with one hand behind our backs, which I appreciated. I ride without reins sometimes at home, and it's a lot of fun. It was a little harder on Dakota. He didn't respond as easily to my leg aids, and he didn't know how to neck rein either. Everything was okay, though. 

I threw out my hip, though. It didn't take very long at all, and it hurt a lot when I was riding. It isn't bothering me now (But my right ankle is messed up--weird, huh? I don't have my ankle support here with me either.), so it's okay. 

Riding Barney was...interesting. As soon as I mounted up, I went over and got a crop from Teresa. I assumed that Barney would be Barney, especially since he was being lazy for his previous rider. He was actually really energetic for me, though. He trotted out really nicely, and he wasn't even too bad cantering. Well, we did have a lot of problems cantering. Most of them were due to little "traffic problems" on the rail and jumps being in very inconvenient spots. Barney wanted to jump the jumps sometimes too. I felt really wild, though, when I was cantering him--one hand on the reins, one hand behind me tapping his side with the crop. He was going really fast, and it would have been super fun if we hadn't had to stop so often. 

I think I like the people in my riding class. Two of the girls that I ride up there with are Pre-Vet, which is awesome. 

Driving to the barn in a car instead of squishing four people into a single-cab truck is pretty nice. I still miss last semester, though.