My non-horsey SO came out to the stable with me yesterday to take pictures and meet Mae. He's an excellent photographer but doesn't know anything about horses. I was cantering Mae in the outdoor ring and he was in the middle taking pictures, and once he lunged at us at run to try to get in a better position and I was like "WHOA...you cannot move that quickly around horses!" Mae, bless her heart, seemed pretty sleepy and didn't seem to mind his quick and jerky actions. Freaked me out, though. But he did get some really good pictures, which I wanted mostly to check out my form and how Mae and I look together since the trainer is MIA and I seem to be on my own with Mae. (BTW I hope you don't mind I'm not posting these photos. I feel kind of weird about putting up pictures of Mae because she's not my horse. If she was mine, you'd see pictures galore, but I just feel weird about it so am not posting pics at this time.)
My SO likes animals in general but I can tell he doesn't "get" the horse thing. He did some work on his laptop while I finished up my ride.
When I was a kid, my mom and I were completely into horses and my brother and dad were most definitely not. When Mom and I started yammering on about horses they couldn't get out of the room fast enough. (I also remember once when my oh-so-tough brother came to the stable with me and watched me groom my horse. He stared at her in wonder and was like, "She is just a WALL of hair." And yesterday, my SO looked at reasonably-sized 15.1-hand Mae and was like, "That is one BIG horse." So funny.)
I never liked boring non-horsey relatives with horse talk, but now that I'm into riding again it's so hard not to talk about it. My SO is very sweet and I can tell he tries hard not to let on how boring he finds it all. I just found out by reading The Eventing Percheron that Daun's SO is horsey. How lucky! I can't even imagine.
Anyone else have a horsey spouse/SO? I assume many of us are in the same boat with a non-horsey spouse who does his or her best to smile through our horse chatter.
In other news, yesterday was also the first time I officially trotted around on Mae without stirrups. Every other time I'd abandon the effort from the start when she got weird and off balance and I could envision myself falling off. This time, I stuck with it and trotting around, both posting and sitting. I knew I could do it. It wasn't pretty, but I figure I'll do a little bit every time I ride. I also spent some time in two-point position, which went just fine.
I've got plans lined up for almost every day after work this week, but I'm already antsy to ride again. I'm also realizing that I truly can't do it all. Some of my activities/hobbies are going to suffer. I just can't work full time, go to yoga class regularly, write fiction, ride Mae and have a life all at once. The yoga has been suffering, and I haven't really been writing much, but I'm trying not to pressure myself to do everything at once. Right now, I'm really interested in riding, so I'm going with it!
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2 comments:
Sounds like you had a good ride - always nice to have someone take pictures, even if you don't post them. I guess we'll just have to wonder what you guys look like... :-)
My SO isn't in to horses, but tries really hard. He makes an effort to learn a bit - probably because I can rhyme off professional cyclists names and recognize WWII airplanes - it's a bit of a trade-off. There is a point though where his eyes glaze over. LOL
LOL. Yeah, my SO likes horses and can appreciate my interest in them, but I suspect he has no burning desire to hear me babble on about my rides.
When he was out taking pictures of me riding, he said, "Are you going to change trots again?" I was like, what? And he said, "You know, change the trot and make it faster and bigger."
He meant to ask whether I was going to change gaits and canter again, ha! Sometimes you've gotta love non-horsey SOs.
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