It was good to start lessons again but the time spent with Diago out of lessons was also awesome.  Today all we did was walk and he did not ‘dip’ his hips like last weekend.  Also from the shadows on the ground I could see his tail was up a bit better too.

So we did the spirals in and out with Pam and I tried to practice my 3 loop serpentine not so much that as trying to keep Diago straight.

Still it was a fun morning.

After the lesson I was standing chatting to jay and rubbing Diago totally oblivious to what he was doing with his feet when he stepped on my foot.  I have been hoping it wouldn’t happen especially after seeing the damage to Anel’s foot – but it did.  All I could do was say eina, eina, eina, eina (naturally I must have looked an idiot LOL).  Diago realised his foot wasn’t quite right so moved it and like jay said he gave my feet wide berth  Diago is such a good soul!!!!!!!   Of course from my stupidity comes some learning and next time I will be watching where I put my feet too LOL. (on that note all I can say thank goodness it wasn’t Teddy’s foot )

Luckily there’s no bruising.

I also learnt what a carrot stretch is – amazing how the horses muscles can be seen quite well when its done. Pam showed me how to get Diago to stretch and its something I should be doing after each lesson.  Diago will be in carrot heaven!!! but as Pam says – he has to work for it.

I almost think that Diaogo wanted to hot foot it around the arena today.  there were times when it seemed he wanted to trot but that fizzled down to a lazy walk… then again there was a spurt of energy and so it went like that until we did the lesson and after the lesson while walking around it seemed he wanted to take off again.   when Diago is ready he will be the ever graceful animal and I will be the “Penelope” trotter once more LOL

…. and you know what???? … I look forward to it

I started off my lesson warming up in the grass arena and whilst they’re noticed two vehicles drive in one after the other.  little did I know it would make for some excitement!

Headed off to the main arena to Pam – waiting for us in the chilly weather.  Diago and I were doing the figure of eights trotting then walking and so forth when all of a sudden he lurched forward.

This movement caught me totally unaware as Diago is so relaxed he’s almost asleep on his feet   however from what I understand the second car which came in did not belong and either the guy getting in or out his car caused Diago to spook.

It all happened so fast – especially for me as a first timer to spooking – I guess your instincts just take over.  I felt Diago’s back end sort of go down and my arms go up like I was trying to rein him in and then he moved forward and I slammed onto the saddle. when he stopped I was still going forward and I think all those wrong exercises of balancing on my toes (instead of heels down) when learning to trot worked in my favour as I was able to stay in the saddle.  I think I must have looked quite spastic and thought I would have been scared – Diago is big, I am big, together equals hard fall - but to my amazement I was more surprised at how unaware it was and of course very much surprised that I stayed in the saddle and being quite comfy at that :)  (all those knees in to the saddle exercises helped LOL)

It was all quite fun I must say!

Diago and I then carried on with the trot as if nothing happened!

In hindsight (which is always excellent) I did notice that Diago was more alert than he usually is and the time before the spook – he was very attentive to everything that was going on around him.