Crazy Romans

Friday, 17 November 2000


Today I had a new mount - Asterix! This, of course, meant learning a all new set of tricks and evasions. Asterix's favourite is the old one of slowing down when approaching the gate. Once noticed it was easy to deal with that one. Catraia is still the more inventive horse I've ridden .

We were five students, besides me there was another student at a similar level, one close to us and two others on their first lesson with saddle. With a four to one male-female ratio this was quite an unusual class!

Francisco distributed us by decreasing level of experience (better yet - increasing level of inexperience) with me and the other student in front. Being called "... more advanced" felt weird. As I looked at the two new students I was seeing myself in my third lesson, and I could see how much difference the lessons are making.

During the stirrupless siting trot it was obvious there was skin parting company with leather. The new students looked unhappy, specially then, just like I did "in my time". I remember that quite well because I have my first lesson with saddle clearly imprinted in my brain (and some other parts of my anatomy ).

The lesson was a slow one for the benefit of the newer students, though nothing was lost on the rest of us! I had the opportunity of experimenting with increasing the rhythm in trot, with some decent results. I focussed by imagining another horse in front of us getting away and, as long as I insisted a little more when we approached the gate, we went just fine.

Close to the end of the lesson we had a little prep speech from Francisco. We were stopped in the centre listening attentively. The same couldn't be said of our mounts. I had to keep Asterix from nosing the two nearest horses, as he insisted in doing it though they were obviously annoyed and threatened to bite him. Jubileu, with one of the newer students, succeeded in advancing several meters towards the gate. Asterix soon sounded like a bored person (or is that a bored horse...) by blowing air through his mouth. Before they do so they puff up with air and you can feel them inflate like a balloon ("Run away! He's gonna blow!!"). That always catches me by surprise, it feels a little strange .

The prep talk was about connecting with the horse, etc, etc. Francisco told us that at this stage he is not concerned about the canter, that should become easier as we develop a better seat. He said that we do it mostly because he knows we like to and it doesn't hurt to try if we want to. That said we got into line again to try it. Well... we tried to get into line. After this time stopped in the centre the horses were convinced the lesson had ended and were not very happy with the idea of continuing.

After a small recreation of a medieval battle, with horses facing every other way and bumping into each other, we managed to get them in line and do a little canter. We did it in groups, with the newer students doing it by themselves with the rest of us out of their way. The lesson ended there ("Finally!!" - said the horses) and we tried to repay them by helping with the feeding.


Pedro Fortunato
Lisbon, Portugal