I rode Crazy Horse!

I went out to the barn this morning, and rode two horses that I'd never ridden before, including the gorgeous, crazy Wal. She was actually really good. She's a pretty easy horse to ride, all things considered. We just did some walk and trot, and a few leg-yields.

I also rode a three-year-old named Aragon. The first time around the arena, he spooked at something and jumped out of the arena--about six inches, so not much, but he shook his head and bounced around a little bit, so it sort of unsettled me. I got him to quit, pet his neck to calm him down (and partly to calm me down, haha), and gave him a minute or so, then led him back into the arena. After that, he was fine for the most part. He spooked a little bit at random stuff around the arena, but nothing like that first time.

What amazed me is that I was able to get this relatively untrained horse to canter just from a shift in my weight and little bit of encouragement from the inside leg, rather than sliding my outside leg back, like I was originally taught. He got a little bit excited, but not too bad, although he did make me a bit nervous--the little horse is just so energetic!

I did a solo bike ride on Sunday morning (although a guy caught up with me and rode with me halfway), and another ride on Monday. There's a hill called Yaupon that SUCKS... it's pretty long, and it's steep too. Last time I rode it, two weeks ago, I had turned off a side road halfway up, and felt like I had cheated, so my mission on Monday was to ride all the way up, and I did. People said I was going up pretty strong, too. Ugh... it was hard. I bailed out on the rest of the ride a little while later, heh...