Not my best ride this morning. Not my worst, but still, one of those kind of "off" days.

Things didn't start out too well when my car wouldn't start because my partner had been dinking around with the headlights last night, and didn't periodically start it to keep the battery charged. So we had to find someone to give us a boost, and I got to the barn late and irritated.

When I got on the horse, I had a weird case of nerves. And I think I jinxed myself last night. I was reflecting on how my riding has been going lately, and feeling pleased about how much my confidence has improved and how I'm much better at visualizing successful rides instead of conjuring up all the ways I *could* possibly have a wreck.

Getting self-congratulatory is apparently a good way to remind your subconscious that it isn't done with you yet. As soon as I was on her, my brain started to picture ways things could go south. Great.

Did I mention this horse is solid and not spooky 99.87% of the time? I've had ONE spooky day on her, back in the fall, where it was way too much for me and I did think I was going to take a spill. That was a cold, noisy, windy day with random HUGE gusts blowing through the arena and rattling the trees and gates, though. And I should have lunged her first but I was too lazy to go back to the barn for the equipment. I digress...

Today, things started out steady as usual, but on one of our 20m canter circles, she decided she had a problem one direction with the sliding door that goes out to the back paddock. She did those straight-ahead "radar ears" at it, and cut in on that side of the circle to avoid it and was blowing off my aids and turning her head out to look at it. Great. I took her around two more times with the same result, and she cut in to avoid it MORE rather than less. Not what I needed on a day where I was already feeling tense. You can tell I've been spoiled by how easy this horse normally is -- and how off I was already today -- when THAT is enough to make me feel threatened. I stopped trying the large canter circles beside it and did smaller trot circles. She was mostly fine, but not TOTALLY fine, and I moved on to other things to get both our minds off it.

Amusingly, she was fine going right past it along the track, but any angle I took that had her approaching it where she was looking directly at it, I got the EARS and the little OMG from her. Made me wonder if something was out there. I tried a four-loop serpentine at the pokiest ever trot, and she still was not cool going towards it. She had a couple small "moments" that probably looked like nothing, but I could feel them. After I'd put in a decent workout on her I stopped things for the day.

Nothing "happened," and I think she and I actually both went pretty well otherwise. When I'm nervous the tension does affect my riding, though, and I tend to tip a bit, tighten a bit, and my one shoulder that likes to pop up and forward on me goes there and wants to stay there. I'm also now switching up my saddle, back and forth between a dressage saddle and a new GP one so I don't get "spoiled" by the dressage saddle, but I do feel less secure in the GP that I used today.

Over all, I didn't get the "sweeeeet, awesome ride!!" feeling today that I've been getting lately, but they can't all be like that. 

With lots more riding I've developed a lot more "feel" for any tension in the horse. My coach rolls her eyes at me for thinking little "nothings" are a big deal. And I do need to learn to just ride through stuff, but after some bolting and major spooking falls very early in my riding days, my self-preservation, defensive instincts are VERY strong. (Strong enough that I'm not sure why I chose THIS sport some days, haha.) I think mostly it's a good thing, but heaven help me if I'm ever taking lessons on an ACTUALLY spooky horse.