More Lesson Lines

lesson lines"to my students i like to say IS THIS A NINTENDO ROBOT PONY you are SITTING on, or are you RIDING a LIVE ANIMAL?" is what i said, in response to the equine phisiology teachers' comment that she often asks endurance riders to STOP thinking of their horses as a bicycle with 4 furry legs and feet for wheels.
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"i tell my students, horses don't eat meat. so, i have been less afraid of every horse i have ever met than i am of your typical house cat" and, so it was that the large animal vet finally started delegating to her.

wouldn't it be great if she could work afternoons with horses too?
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"So, what's a release?"
a rather talented young dressage rider asked Jill in the tackroom.

While they'd been warming up, as the student riders for the OEF Coach Evaluations, another horse and rider pair had taken a terrible tumble. They were cantering over an everyday plain vertical, and had a normal pace, and hit a normal spot and seemed to jump normally. but a stride after landing the clyde cross fell right down, like crumpling in front. hitting the ground hard and appearing to roll over the rider's lower half.

Jill had been riding behind and came up first to the fallen girl.
"now, take a minute. don't rush to get up. can you talk to us or is the wind knocked out of you"
there girl was spitting dust out of her mouth and wiping her face and getting to her feet. "well, you've got a scraped elbow, that we can see"
one of the coaches there for the testing was at her side by this time, holding the now on its feet with a bleeding scratched nose bay and helping the blonde to her feet.
"what did i do wrong?" she said.

"oh honey, i don't know if you did anything wrong. to me it looked like zoe just tripped." the other instructor, who'd been standing at the doorway, watching from the front said "you just need to release more"