Chessington 24

18th August 2010

Chessington Equestrian Centre, Chessington

Rode Tom in the group lesson, and I told Diane beforehand that I'd fallen last time and lost confidence, she said we were going to be doing pole work today and working on medium walk and medium trot, so I didn't need to worry. The first time we approached 'that corner' where I'd had the bad transitions last week, he baulked a bit, but that may well have been my nerves. The surface got all mashed up with the rain last week, and was a lot deeper and a bit boggy at the time I fell. He didn't seem to like going over it though, even today. I was nervous about cantering again. The first time was on the right rein, which is his best and not the one I fell off on. He was fine. Quite forward but listened to me when I asked him to slow, and Diane said he'd picked up on my tension. Then on the left rein, his worst and the one I'd fallen off on, we were supposed to pick up canter in the C-H corner, which was the dodgy one and where I fell off. I asked Diane if I could canter on the next corner instead, but when I got to C, figured I had to beat the demon so just went for it. And he was fine. But that didn't seem to have built my confidence back up at all. We then went over 5 poles on the 3/4 line, first in walk, then stretched out to try and get a medium walk, then in trot and medium trot. I guess I was being over-sensitive, and sending negativity to Tom, but I was getting more nervous, and felt he was getting strong (he has the softest mouth ever), so when we moved up to canter poles, I chickened out. Rather than have me give up, Diane suggested I swap onto Harvey and do the exercise, which I did but again I felt that he was being strong. It was windy, and either I have got a chip on my shoulder about riding in the wind, or the horses actually get silly in it, or maybe a bit of both. It did make me feel a little better that the guy now riding Tom, a very effective rider, had issues, and struggled to keep the canter, and also had a run out over the poles. Not just me then... Diane did say that Tom was not a confidence giving horse at all, at 7 years old, he arrived at Chessington a year and a half ago, quite unschooled, and although he was shared for a while by a great rider there, he's not done much since. I really do want to go ahead with the share, and bring his schooling on, even if I just stick to walk and trot in the school for a while. He's fabulous to hack, it's just that he seems to have got the better of me in the school, and I need to learn how to better deal with it. So I'll try and have weekly lessons still on some of the other horses, and build the confidence back up. For now, I'm going to have a private lunge lesson on Friday, then have a few more private lessons before going back to the groups. After having my confidence and ability gradually built up over a couple of months, I've gone charging in to the group lessons, with people of a much higher ability than myself, and lost confidence because I can't ride as well as them.