I, Equitator: Day Nine (w/ video!)

I, Equitator: Day One • Day Two • Day Three • Day Four • Day Five • Day Six • Day Seven • Day Eight • Day Nine

I really don’t think my poor abused, um, undercarriage, can take much more of this. Or my hands. Or my legs. Jeez, who knew horse-riding was an endurance event?

Anyway, I have even less to say here than usual, so in brief: Charlotte was already brushed when I got in, so I saddled her up all by myself and took her out into the arena … at which point my attempts at mounting her ended up with the saddle seat suddenly over her ribs. (Long story short: I dun goofed with the saddling part.)

Nathalie, trying to figure out in how many ways I screwed it up. Pity her. [full size (1200×900)]

[full size (1200×900)]

Anyway, I ended up riding her for longer than usual, including a good twenty minutes of solid, ball-ecchymosing fun^*. Oh, and just in case you were wondering just how high that thing is …

Yes, I’m actually seated that high [full size (1200×900)]

Not a good time to have vertigo [full size (1200×900)]

Guess she was hungry [full size (1200×900)]

Question answered?

After a while, my hands were starting to cramp up from all the pointless tugging I was making on the reins (that horse just doesn’t really care much about directions at all; it’s a miracle I don’t have to guide her away from the walls), so I hopped off and we spent the remaining ten minutes or so just walking the great stubborn thing around to cool off. Which means I finally had my hands free for a few seconds of incredibly amateurish video!

… Yeah, couldn’t resist doing that. I’m lame.

And so, after that, we brought her back into the stalls, I gave her a good brushing (nothing relaxes her like a coarse-bristled brush), and thought to take a pseudo-artistic shot of one of those great, big, soulful mirrors:

Ooh, pretty pensieve [full size (1200×900)]

And then, I took her outside, and I left.

Hey, it ain’t all ceremony. ;-)

* Before you make a crack about “riding” my horse until I got “bruised balls”, I regret to inform you that I do not quite swing that way. Perv.