it's just a little pony!

This past weekend's lesson at OF was a bit of a departure from the norm for us. Everyone else in the lesson was deep into show-prep mode. Meanwhile I was just hangin around like, "let's try something different, put me on one of your schoolies!"

this is Noel

Aaaaaand that's how I ended up riding a children's pony haha. I mean, Isabel is basically a pony, but this little mare was the real deal. She was TINY. But. Ya know. Super fat, so it all worked out. She still took up my leg. lol

she be little. and i have a sick sense of humor so i dressed her in orange. you're welcome.

Trainer P apparently used to ride and show Noel's grandmother. Noel herself was P's daughter's pony through novice, and taught quite a few other kids in the family how to ride. And she has since gone on to produce more excellent lesson ponies for OF. If there's one thing that OF specializes in, it's ponies. Well. Technically Shetlands. But all kinds of ponies too.

not my typical red ears. mane is just as wild tho

And whadya know, this pony was legit fun to ride. She hasn't been working regularly for a while, and when she does it's just with kids who don't actually make her work. So she tried to act like she didn't know what work was. It was a weak effort tho, and she actually pretty willingly got down to business.

It was funny - she rode in some ways very similarly to Isabel. Not at all like the tank that she looks like. Clearly a horse who has been schooled. We didn't push too hard at the flat bc the poor thing was definitely out of shape lol. It felt reassuring tho to feel like I could get on a new horse and find all the buttons.

that moment when the pony is super tidy up front, but almost takes the rail with her belly

Jumping was definitely super fun. The pony knows her job and just kinda does it. Her canter is a little weak tho and her tendency is to get long and flat, so P asked me to do the adds in the lines. This, after I had done the step through a triple combination 2-3, and we basically super-manned out of it. Slightly dicey.

P pointed out that you don't really want to be riding a pony at their maximum stride length, that it's better to make sure you can compress when needed. So we went back and did it again in 3-4 mostly nicely. Tho when we put the whole course together it became a 2-4... but rode well so it was all good.

turns out i can drift left on equines of all sizes!

Trainer P had warned me that the pony was very one-sided, and that she has a wicked twist over fences - diving left then jumping right. I expected to be a little unsettled by this, but actually barely even noticed. Possibly bc Isabel and I are already quite proficient at the left handed Tokyo drift haha...

wheeeeeee pony!

The pony also had a fairly lateral and very flat canter and jump. So a VERY different feel from Isabel. Isabel cracks her back over the merest of cross rails, whereas Noel just easily pops over. I barely moved at all. Also made it way easier to see my spots (not that I didn't still goof up there anyway, but you know what I mean).

she was a kinda cool ride, actually

She handled nicely tho. It was REALLY obvious to feel when she dropped down in her shoulders and got too heavy up front, but also surprisingly easy to lift her back up again with my legs. Again, a reassuring feeling since that is essentially one of my biggest issues with Isabel. Turns out on a better-schooled horse I can actually properly identify and correct that problem. Who woulda thunk.

We basically did the typical P lesson of working through all the individual parts of a course - lots of bending lines and skinnies and a corner and a sharks tooth and a liverpool - then putting the jumps up and putting it all together.

this photo makes me giggle. a lot. lol

Some jumps always came up a little awkwardly for us - like the oxer on a short turning approach. While others rode perfectly every time - like the 4 stride bending line, the out of which is pictured above. That picture makes me laugh bc I look so ridiculous on her haha, and yet we mostly nailed that jump. It was pretty close to an even bend, tho I guess the last stride got slightly short. And yet I'm hovering like... 18 miles above the horse.

Whatever tho. I'm in balance, and she jumps so flat and the jumps were so small that a more aggressively folded position on my part would have been maybe equally ridiculous. Maybe. Idk. I can rationalize anything haha.

run Noel, RUN!

The final course mostly went pretty smoothly too. I tried to leave a stride out in the line to the corner and Noel kinda just covered my ass like a good little pony...  and we were still icky to that darn oxer.... Oh and we missed a turn early on course and had to circle lol. And the poor thing was huffing and puffing by the end...

video here

But whatever. It was fun. I think the pony mare had fun - I honestly mostly left her alone to do her job, only putting in corrections like lifting her up to the fences and balancing in the corners. But otherwise I just enjoyed being a passenger.

Then we hacked out to the xc field so another lesson mate could school a ditch or two before her show and called it a day.

thank god for barn rats who are happy to hack her down to her field way out in timbuktu!!

It was such a crazy feeling riding her too. She is smaller than Isabel, but yet jumps so much flatter that everything just felt like speed bumps lol.

I've always said how much I love riding other horses, but actually haven't jumped anything other than Isabel since Bali left the farm. It was a nice change of pace! Especially bc I've also always said that Isabel has never been my kind of ride - she's just the horse that fate put in my path. Sometimes it's good to remember that there are other kinds of rides out there!

What about you - do you like to switch it up and ride other horses when possible?