Tango wants to be a jumping horse

Well... not exactly a 'jumping horse', but he did jump some baby cross rails for me, so that's super fun.

Please forgive my weird giggles. It's just I never really expected Tango to jump and there he was, taking itty bitty cross rails like it's his job or something.

And then yesterday... ugh. Yesterday didn't go so well.

First, I had a lesson scheduled at 10am. By 10:30, I had the horse tacked up. By 10:45 I was wondering... if I warm him up, does that still count as a lesson? By 11am:

Trying to get him to smell my foot.

Hi Farm Dog!

Success!

And then my 12:30 was late, so we rushed through all that, and then she had to leave at 1:30, which left me with a sweaty (albeit ADORABLE):

pony.

And then I put her saddle away, oiled it, cleaned the bit, swept the aisle, put the dog in the car, and spotted pony in my rear view mirror. "Huh," I thought, "I wonder who's going to ride Skipper now."

I got onto 17 and then it dawned on me... I was supposed to put her away.

Sh**.

So I got back to the farm, put the pony away, and called it a day.

I left my tall boots at my other job last night, so I just rode in paddock boots today, sans half-chaps. I don't even think I own half-chaps anymore... I'm remembering why they're helpful. There is definitely some helpful friction against the saddle. I also put a new saddle on Tango because he's lost some weight and my favorite saddle doesn't fit him anymore, but I hated it. It fit him well, but I felt gigantic in it.

I loathe saddle hunts.

Despite my riding like a sloppy bag of potatoes, he was pretty good today. Actually quite excellent. I'm tempted to enter him in 2-1 at the show just for giggles. Heh. Heh. The judge won't appreciate it at all, but I think I might do it anyway. Tango's shoulder-in is just gorgeous and amazing to the right, and when he comes out of it his trot is always extra floaty and dreamy. To the left? I mean... he does it. It's not good, but he does it.

I thought, "Introduce: Collected trot." So I sat him back and we trotted slowly. That's collection at it's finest, you know.

"Introduce: Collected Canter." So I asked for a canter out of our slow trot and I got... a canter. Welllll if you make working canter just look INSANE, then normal canter is totally a collected canter. CHECK.

"10 meter circle at canter." Dude we've totally got this. What are the directive ideas? Shape and size of the circle? NAILED IT. Bend? Uhm. Maybe the judge won't notice.

"Medium gaits." I'll refer to my thought process for collected canter.

"Shoulder-in." Boom. We'll just work on the left one a little more.

"Simple change." .... Okay, so he pretty much hates simple changes. He thinks it'd be WAAYYY easier just to do a flying change. A crazy one where he throws his body around like a jackass. But I bet we could fake it.

"Rein-back." We've been schooling this since day one because it helps the whole non-existent brake thing!

Boom. An easy 45% right there.

That's what schooling shows are for, right?

"I got my face washed, and I soaked my person in the process! I'm totally a second level horse ;) " -Tango

 Alright, I hear you. We'll stick to training and first.