Life Update – Horses and Ratties!

Hello everyone!
I’m sorry I haven’t kept up with Maple’s Training Posts; I’ve haven’t been able to use the laptop to blog or reply to emails, but now I’m back on and hopefully there’ll be lots of rat posts and equi-posts! 
So, in the past week, I am truly shocked by the progress Maple has made. For those of you who don’t know, Maple is my silverfawn hooded carrier fancy rat, and I’ve had her for three weeks and four days. She, Pingu and Olive are fully living together now, which I’m so so so so so happy about. I can see the difference in Olive, now she has someone to playfight with, sleep with, and play with during free-range time. She does get annoyed by Maple and Pingu sometimes still, but they calm down and she goes to a different place in the MEGA ferret cage! My last free-range play with Maple was amazing. She crawled through my jersey and poked her head over the top, looking out, and stayed that way for quite a while! She’s also letting me hold her quite well now, I’m trying to do it as often as possible so it becomes a normal thing and she knows she won’t get hurt, but I also don’t want to do it too much because then she could get overwhelmed and associate handling as ‘bad’. Anyway, I was really impressed with her; Maple’s  confidence is building and she’s excactly the type of rat I hoped for and more. She seems to enjoy my presence, and I’m really glad I chose her over the other fancy rats because she needs calm and patience, and I can give her that. So that’s ratty update – now  for the equestrian updates!!
I had a lesson with Zion on Thursday, and it started off pretty well! I gave Sophie a bridle that’s been sitting in my closet for forever and I think she liked it! I just said it might need an oiling, because the leather was quite stiff. I brushed Zion (who’s been clipped, making the job easier) and Mav, the chestnut, shoved his head in my face and said hello. Then I did up his saddle and girth (I’m still practising doing up girths) and put on his bridle, which was actually easier than I thought it would be, since he loves to keep his head way up in the air so I can’t do it up. I put on my back protecter, helmet and Sophie handed me a riding whip, and then we were off! I did a few laps of walking to warm up, then trot and once he was nice and loose, Sophie got me to do some drills, so I did some ‘barrel racing’ at a trot around invisible barrels, which was kind of tricky, not  going to lie! I’m not very good at remembering patterns, especially when I’m also trying to remember to keep my heels down, body back and hip-to-heel, but we did it…kind of…I got lost in the middle and Sophie told me where to go 🙂 Guess I won’t be a professional barrel-racer!!! XD Then she explained how to get Zion to ‘drift out with his hindquarters’ and slow down. Normally I turn him in a tight circle if he speeds up, or half-halt, but today she explained I needed to turn him in a tight circle, bring the reins to the back of the saddle past my hip so his head was turned in, and squeeze him on, circling still at a trot. I had to tap with my inside leg to get his hindquarters to drift out, and it worked! Then Sophie asked if I wanted to canter, and I said yes. My current goal is to get the hang of cantering, and it’s not so much staying on, but more the transition from trot to canter, and turning. When we turn I have to lean slightly in the opposite direction so I don’t slide off, and it hasn’t happened yet, but it’s always something I’m nervous about. So anyway, I urged him into a trot and did a few laps, and then squeezed him into a canter. He bunny-hopped like he always does, so I urged him again, which is how I got good canters the lesson before. However, Zion was not feeling it, and he bunny-hopped again. Sophie told me to turn him in  a hard circle if he did that again, so when I tried again he bucked. It was an actual buck – not a very big one, but a buck. I stayed on, thank goodness, and kept trying. I managed to get him to canter twice, but then on the third time we were turning and he bucked again and I went flying. So yeah. My first proper fall. Zion hadn’t done an especially big buck, but since we were turning, I got thrown to one side and he kept on going, so I decided to bail and yeah. I can’t really remember all the details! Anyway, I landed on my side and I’m COMPLETELY fine – my arm aches a tiny bit, but it’s fine and it’s just slightly bruised, but it doesn’t hurt very much. Sophie was pretty cross with Zion for pulling that move, and she asked if I’d be OK with riding Mav next time, or a few lessons after that. I said yes, and I’m going to be honest, I’ve had my eye on Mav since I started riding Zion. I LOVE chesnuts and bays – whichever one Mav falls into. Zion will always be really special and I hope to keep riding him, because he and Sophie both teach me a lot. Sophie explained Mav’s canter is more like a rocking horse canter, which might be better to start off with, since Zion’s canter is quite bouncy. So hopefully when I’ve got cantering on Mav going well, I can try with Zion and be a bit more confident. However, Mav’s got a bleeding nose, so I can ride him once his nose has healed. I think it’s like a human blood nose, but I’m not sure, I’d have to check. So yeah! That was my lesson! Kelly Wilson said in one of her books, ‘It Takes 100 Falls To Call Yourself A Proper Rider’ so I’m 98 more to go! 
The photo below was from a different lesson where I jumped 40ish centimeters, and I’m pretty happy with my position. Zion looks sooo magestic and royal in his camo-saddlepad and his jump!

PS the photo above is from a different lesson, but I didn’t get any photographs of this lesson 😁