If I had a dollar...

For every time I have heard sit back, sit up, or back with the upper body in the last week I would be a solid millionaire! I’m clearly learning a lot about using my back and seat to really influence the horses. It’s not easy! First you have to ride forward, oh but not to forward then they are on the forehand, then you must ride more uphill but not slower, just more collected, but with a longer deeper neck, but not with their nose on their chest. Oh yes and you must do all this from you leg and seat, and when you get really good at it then you can use a hint of rein. But until you really understand the correct use of your leg and seat every time you use your rein it is considered to be pulling! Craziness but its all true, so I struggle and I try to have one good moment (be it brief) during every ride where I think, oh this must be it!
I’m finally getting to ride a lot which is great. I am able to sit on so many different horses ranging from gigantic movers to daintier movers and everything in between. I have a few horses that I work on my own, under the watchful eye of Heike and Mayke (the assistant trainer) of course. But I also warm several horses up for Heike and Mayke. So being employed as a rider is pretty much amazing, so far!!
We start promptly at 7am and everyone (grooms, riders, trainers, and working students) feed and clean the stable. There are just over 20 boxes in the riding stable (there are many more in the different breeding stables on the farm), but we just care for the riding horses. After the stable is cleaned we sit down to a lovely breakfast with the “team.” It’s complete with fresh bread, coffee, tea, and everything imaginable to top your bread. After breakfast we start riding. We ride till about 1pm, take a short lunch break and ride again till 5pm.
Of course the weather here in ole Deutschland is somewhat less than desirable. It has rained pretty much every day since I’ve been back and it’s probably not going to stop until summer of next year. Oh well!
Riley continues to impress me! He has had to learn to ride along side my bicycle to and from work. Someone will have to get a picture of this, it’s just adorable! At first I thought I would be writing a terrible story of how I broke my leg on the way to the stable on my first day of work. But Riley has been great, he still likes to swerve into the front tire sometimes, in which he scares himself and pulls us both way off to one side. But luckily those incidents are becoming less and less!
Since I am living by myself I am going to be reading a lot more! So if anyone has read any good books lately, email me!! bmeaghan@gmail.com

Thanks for reading, always more to come!

Meaghan :)