Saturday Eli and I had a very good lesson, with a few mistakes but overall we did really well. The mistakes were also completely corrected by the end of the lesson–one was missing a distance at a vertical, the other was a sloppy turn. Eli’s leads weren’t quite there for the lesson, but I was able for the most part to hold a counter canter around turns instead of just getting a swap in front but not in back.

I rectified a missed distance at a vertical by coming to it next time off of a slightly different track–my trainer suggested the track I was taking left me at a half stride before the fence, so I needed to turn sooner, or take a more hunter-y path by the rail before turning. I was able to try both options in different courses, and both worked–much better than the middle-of-the-road turn that failed me.

The sloppy turn came during our last course, to the last fence–a sweeping rollback from 6 to 7. I balanced Eli up after 6 before turning and he got the lead, and then I basically checked out for a stride or two right in front of the in gate and Eli swapped back, so the rollback past the in gate to skinny 7 was pretty yucky, but I managed to get my leg back on and we cleared it from a close but acceptable distance. Although I know I have to ride every step, sometimes I just don’t. That’s a lack of mental discipline on my part and Eli is not one to just keep going correctly while I zone out. Got to keep working on my brain: it’s better than it was but I still have a long way to go.

Sunday I took a trip down to San Antonio to visit friends that are basically family and more family later. Luckily, I stayed in the same neighborhood going from one house to the next.

The smallest kiddo there knew exactly how to use my phone to look at pictures of my dog. Next I went to a birthday bbq celebration and was pretty exhausted by the time I got back to Austin and never did make it out to the barn. But I’ll be riding tonight & Tuesday before Eli gets Wednesday and Thursday off after having his teeth done and a flu/rhino booster. We’ve got two weeks before our next show and I think we’re pretty well-prepared for it this time around.