Bit of this and that

Went for a lovely couple of hacks these last few days. Wanda has a giant warmblood baby that needs to do some fitness and relaxing work, so I've been tagging along to keep her company and keep Monty quiet.
The other day I rode Toby on the hack, one of the kids ponies. He's such good fun. He has the slowest walk and trot, but get him into canter and he's off! Good luck stopping him once he's on a roll.

Toby

I'm really enjoying my hacks. The English countryside is so very different, so it's very refreshing and interesting. I have always been a part-time trail rider too, so it's nice to get out.

I rode Romeo yesterday on out trail adventure. Mostly walking as we were exploring and mostly were on roads, or very hard ground. Still more than pretty! We ended up staying out for a good two hours.

Today we did a mock teaching assessment with Tina. Five of the staff were mounted while one of us did a quick jumping lesson. I started on Saffy in the warm up. I had her going forward, which was something I guess. As soon as the warm-up was over it was my turn to teach the staff over a single cross rail.
I thought I started out well. I was in teacher mode. But I will admit I completely lost my confidence and had a literal cry to Tina afterwards. As far as I can tell, I did nothing right. Placing pole is wrong. I wasn't picking up basic corrections. I wasn't being critical enough. I wasn't coaching anyone. Pretty much everything I did, Tina had something negative to say.
It seems that every lesson I have with Tina I come out with less confidence than I had before. It probably means I over-analyse and am too hard on myself, but I take it as I can't teach/ride, there was nothing good to come of it, and why the heck should I keep trying?
So me (and another of the staff who felt much the same as I did- i.e. humiliated and useless) had a few tears in the office. Tina basically told us to move on, and that we would obviously not make the same mistakes again,
I think I just struggle with tough instructors! I suppose I need some encouragement of some kind, otherwise I just give up.

For the rest of that teaching practice lesson I rode Xariel (pronounced Sha-Reel), one of the Lusitano stallions. He's not a jumper. He can't see very well out of one eye, and tends to run out dramatically and charge into walls and other horses. He wasn't too bad today- He stopped a few times, but it wasn't too crazy. He was lovely to ride. Baroque horses are for me! Lipizzaners are better, but I guess I can make do with Lusitanos!

We also had another gallop around the field on the ponies today. It was quiet in lessons, so the ponies needed exercising so they aren't completely feral for the busy weekend. I rode Bronte, my nemesis, and made her gallop around like mad with my fat butt riding her. Serves her right for being horrible!

I'm riding on the evening class tonight, so will update tomorrow on my afternoon off. Have been doing lots of groundwork too with my new favourite stallion! (on this side of the world, anyway)Until then!