racial harmony day today.

i wore a SARI to school. lol

but i wore a tee inside instead of that half top

and i wore that bindhi thingy

sunneh's still marvelling at how i got it to stick for so long :P

minsu said i looked INDIAN. muaha

so now, although i'm chinese,

i can look malay, indian AND eurasian

cross racial morphing. haha!

riding was good!

it just seemed so strange to be so short.

tikki felt so TINY!

and my stirrups were at the last hole and still wayyy short.

i felt like i was some huge giant on him.

the little monster came with a warning;

sue told me he's been naughty all week

and on wednesday, he managed to buck AMANDA LOWE off.

and she's PRO.

sue brought us to the sand track

we trotted alot and worked on keeping our horses in frames

he gave the bend really nicely.

the problem was keeping him in it.

he did try to misbehave a bit.

but zul's training kicked in and then:

voila! he was perfect.

kept his frame without side reins or grass reins :D

then CANTER:

it was like pony racing!

sue let me and viv canter the whole ring.

TWICE

his strides felt so small!

i used alot of seat and tried flexing again.

he gave it to me :D

that wonderful little miscreant

i have to say, that's one of my better lessons.

exhausting, but FUN.

hopefully, next week i'll get him again and we'll go to paradise and do some arena work.

I HOPE!

i got BEA again.

sandra took us, dawn on magic, jun on stanley, ying on hank and me on bea.

it was really quite a let-down of a lesson. :/

i couldn't get her canter AT ALL

and sandra says i have to oil my steering wheel.

even the flexing didn;t seem there this week.

sighhhhh...

tikki tommorrow.

talk about TOTAL OPPOSITES

bea vs. tikki "torture"

fun lesson? i hope so!

today was just... THE BEST! bea is FANTASTIC! and she's so responsive? what sue would call a "fancy horse" haha!

sandra took us today. our class had all the difficult horses! dawn got magic, jun got stanley and that other girl... (erm yin i think?) got hank. we did walk and trot only but it was a wonderful lesson! we just did circles and serpentines. sandra set blocks for us so we didn't have to concentrate on where we were going and just FLEX!

bea was really forward and all and sandra insisted on us keeping out distances and very SLOW. quite a change from sue really. it took a while for me to get use to slowing her and using my hands alot more than i would on most horses and having to keep retake the reins cuz she keeps pulling them longer! but after i got it she was a DREAM!

sandra kinda hinted we MIGHT get the same horses next week. i DO HOPE SO!! :D

[edit] oh yes! DAWNIE'S SISTER, ERIN, CAME TO VISIT THE HORSES! she is so absolutely AH-DORABLE! she went round feeding all the horses and wasn't afraid of them at all! (unlike a certain brother of mine...) oh AND, the little darling is going to BUY sunshine. dawn is going to pay and erin is going to ride. haha! so cute! [/edit]

okay i spent HUGELY long typing out this longg post abt riding on thurs and fri? and i lost it. bleahh. so a vague summary...

remember how i said i didn't like we are on at all? i take that back. ALL of it. he's WONDERFUL! and sue was very impressed with us :D yay!

thursday's wasn't as good though. i switched with dawn and got chuckie. we did ALOT of flexion. i HARDLY got him round and i have a blister-like sore on my ring finger, where the reins were :/. he also ran off in canter. FOUR times. and chuckie, who NEVER EVER EVER gallops, did it. even though i was still posting. sue though i would fall. all i can say is: THANK GOD FOR ZUL!

i have spent the last half an hour clicking around on the e-learning portal and have just come to the conclusion that today and tomorrow are NOT going to be an extended holiday like i thought...

and to make matters worse, all the teachers are able to track when exactly we access the lessons and what we get on the quizes etc. so procrastination is quite literally BANNED. this is going to be tough... considering what a wonderous procrastinater i've evolved into...

and i'm think i'll procrastinate somemore and do this quiz 'leanor just sent me here:

on the bright side though, riding later :D and tommorow too. i just wonder who i'm getting.

i like this:

The Dressage Rider
Somebody who likes to dress-up, be the center of attention and ride his/her horse in front of a posh country house, preferably owned by royalty.

i LOVE the wall! so pretty yes? painted by jun daph frances chun fei and moi.

YAY for the (non-existant) btsc art comm! :D

sue told us that chuckie had a shock when he saw it (poor boy) and songkla was even worse. suchi ahmad ,who happens to be a VERY good rider, was riding him and couldn't even get him to get past the wall. :P in fact most of the horses haven't got used to it yet...

[edit] we also got really different reactions from the homo sapien inhabitants of the club. the most hilarious? some of the syces wanted to know why the riders on the pic didn't have noses or eyes or ears. one of them was like "ai-ya! like that how to ride properly?" lol. [/edit]

we are on was quite ok with it though. he walked past it without even flicking an ear at it. i'm quite thankful for that cuz i completely forgot about the horses' reaction to the wall and was adjusting my stirrup as we walked past. thank god he didn't bolt!

lesson was superb! we did open order the ENTIRE lesson. jun had little red and dawn got magic. exactly like the 2nd day of pony camp... wonder if that was what sue was thinking?

when we were just beggining, sue noticed we were all riding chestnuts AND we were all lined up in order of height (of the horses). and she laughed and said: "LOOK! daddy horse (points at magic) mommy horse (points at we are on) and BABY HORSE! (points at little red)" it was SOO funny! esp the way she said it. then halfway sandra came up to school bea and sue told her. then she realised bea was chestnut as well and so bea became mommy horse and we are on became brother horse.

"SO AH-DORABLE!!" ;)

[edit] i just realised when bea 1st came sue said she was chuckie's wife! *scandalous look of horror* [/edit]

we mainly concentrated on flexing. we are on was terribly stiff at 1st and EXTREMELY heavy on the forehand. sue told me to flex and half halt upwards instead of towards me. it worked, but only in circles :/ must work on that.

canter was TERRIFIC though. his canter is like... slow and it seems as though he's going to canter on and on and on really slowly and nicely. so fun! he got heavy again in it but he was on the bit so it kinda made up for that.

i can't wait for next week's lesson :D

[one-more-edit-at-dawn's-request] way way after lesson and that little shopping spree at the tack shop, me and dawn were happily strolling around the stables crunching ice in blue cups we "stole" from the cafe :P (we returned them!) we saw sue and sandra washing down we are on. turned out that the poor boy was a tad colicky! but sue said it had nothing to do with me (whew!) and he sometimes gets like that so it's no worry. and he was fine after being hosed down by sandra :)

oh and dawn showed cowwgirl penny her new socks! cow print ones from the frankfurt international airport. penny was munching away at her hay when we got there and dawn poked her foot under the bar and went "PEN-NEH-LOP-EEE! look at my socks!" i burst out laughing so hard that tikki (next door to penny) looked over. penny couldn't care the least and kept chewing her hay and not paying us the slightest attention. haha! maybe we can try again this thurs dawnie? [/one-more-edit-at-dawn's-request]