Mom Lessons

Every weekend it's my Mom's turn to ride Smash. Since she half leases her from me, in a matter of speaking, and cannot ride during the week, we've decided it's best I ride how many times I want/need during the week and then she gets the weekends for a practice ride and her riding lesson with Steph T. (not the same Steph B. I ride with). This has worked especially well now that we don't both ride on Sundays!

This weekend I decided to tag along on Sunday and help her tack up and watch her with her new instructor. After literally running/walking over a mile to retrieve Smash we got her tacked up with the new girth extender (which works perfectly, btw!) and headed out for their lesson. I loved the transformation my Mom has already made. Steph T. is working on relaxing and how to communicate with Smash and I can see a huge improvement in just my Mom's second lesson! I captured this picture which I think was amazing:

As you can see the connection with the reins is consistent but not too loose or tight and Smash is starting to stretch and round her top line. You can also see her moving from her hindquarters into her front end and you can see my Mom's position is relaxed and balanced. While she hasn't 100% completely transformed yet (who has??) she did have a lot of great moments like this throughout her lessons. I was amazed at how much progress my Mom has made with only 2 lessons! I can't wait to see how she transforms over the course of the year!

Not to mention, every time my Mom works with Smash like this and every time I continue to work with Smash with Steph B. we contribute to her sell-ability to any rider out there who wants to pursue Dressage, Jumping, or Eventing with Smash in their career. It also makes it harder for me to sell Smash since she is becoming such an amazing horse to have...but unless my Mom buys her I have to just keep going with my plan so I can start my family and life with Nick. :)

This week poses to be an exciting week. I have 2 jumping lessons (Monday and Friday) and I have my helmet camera mount secured to my helmet so I can practice capturing my jumping! How cool is that? I hope I can get some decent footage to share on here!