an eventful weekend of riding lessons

it's not really all that much warmer, but we've convinced sabin to return to her riding lessons. on saturday, there were only four small girls there, so they had a lesson on the lunge line for the first time. they used a vaulting surcingle and even got to try standing up on the horse! sadly, i only had my iPhone along, so i don't have great pictures of it, but i do have this one:

sabin's saturday teacher is the son of the woman who owns the stable and he's SO great with the kids. we're just so pleased with all of the different instructors sabin has had there, top quality all of them in their own way. and the horses, i can't say enough good about the quality of the lesson horses either. sabin's ridden such a variety - from warmbloods to this icelandic pony to a beautiful palomino pony on sunday. his name is sjaek (sheik) and as you can see, she was really pleased to ride him. she had previously prided herself on only riding the big horses, but her ride on sjaek was just the thing to give her back her confidence after a couple of super cold lessons on frisky horses with freezing fingers. he's really a super pony and she had a great ride.

snow masks

have you tried this in the snow? you stick your face down into fresh, fluffy, rather wet snow and it makes a snow mask. then, you take a photo (at 1200ISO, aperture priority f/3.5, exposure comp -1.3) and voila...it pops out, as if you're lying down under all that snow. a perfect mask:

 husband

 sabin

 me

sabin again.

aren't they fantastically creepy?

back to riding

sabin took a few weeks off her riding lessons because it's been so cold. when it's so cold, her hands completely freeze, despite trying several different kinds of fancy supposedly wintery riding gloves and then she feels she can't properly hold the reins and have control of the horse. it was making her dislike riding and there were tears. but yesterday, it was a bit warmer and i encouraged forced her to go.

her teacher was very understanding and let her ride Silverstar, the horse she rode at her very first lessons. he's super steady and doesn't pull any tricks and doesn't do any naughty snortiness. still she didn't want to canter and rode into the center when the others cantered. then, the teacher had them put their stirrups up so they were riding without stirrups. after trotting for awhile that way, she asked them to canter and sabin just cued Silverstar into a canter like nobody's business. husband and me laughed pretty hard. she wouldn't canter with the stirrups, but it was no problem without.

she managed to visit all of her favorites horses and give them a carrot after the lesson. especially Zidan.