Life in bay: Balki Style

While WallE continues to recover from the fence incident, I have been traveling to my trainer's barn and riding her horses. It has been a great experience and nice reminder that it pays to be a versatile rider and you only get that way, by riding other horses. 

She has a horse named Balki and we seem to get a long well. He is a bit more powerful than WallE, but wants to do his job and keep you in the saddle. Those are nice attributes. 

Prior to WallE being injured, I had signed up for the Kai-Steffan Meier clinic. He travels from Germany to teach the clinic and there are no refunds. Laura was nice enough to let me borrow Balki for the clinic and it could not have been more fun. 

I was a bit nervous about how the jumping would go. In our four rides prior to the clinic, each ride improved, but I had a near fall or misunderstanding with Balki each ride. Luckily, he wants his rider to stay on and helped me out each time. I wore my stickiest pants and my cross country vest in preparation. Turns out, neither were necessary. 

Balki was a pro on the show jump day. I was a bit nervous and it shows up in my videos (where I talk to him the ENTIRE course), but he was game and ready to have a great day. Things started off a bit rocky with trot and canter poles, but improved once we jumped an actual jump for the first time. We did a few circles, but once I started talking aloud (self soothing really) things went much better. I found that he was adjustable and happy to adjust his stride as needed. I think we only missed a distance to one fence (a million times better than our previous record). 

On Cross Country day, I was a bit nervous as I had never ridden Balki Cross Country, however all went well. He is WAY more powerful than WallE, so when we were doing a normal canter, I thought it felt like a gallop. It look me a bit to get used to it, with the clinician telling me to canter on and get more canter the entire time. Looking at the videos, I can see why. He jumped everything really well, but had trouble at the corner because of the way I set him up. Prior to the clinic I had only jumped one corner, so I learned a lot about track (had to repeat four or five times to get it while everyone watched). I can find a track to a straight forward jump, but the corner still seems pretty tough. Luckily once I set Balki up for success, he was game and happy to do as asked. 

Overall a very confidence building weekend for me and hopefully a good outing for Balki as well. Major take away: the shorter amount of time you take to brake, the faster you go.