On Thanksgiving Day while we were skyping with my brother Tyler, I discovered that my niece Jillian was interested in learning how to ride. My dad and I were immediately excited but we didn't make too big a deal about it since we wanted to surprise Jillian with this for Christmas. We researched how much it would cost for her to take riding lessons at a local stable and were floored that for beginners most places were charging up to $50/hour. CRAZY!!!! So we decided that since we have a underused pony just sitting in my parent's field and I have years of riding experience that I would just teach her myself and my parents would buy her a pair of riding boots instead to get her started. She was excited to open the gift Christmas Day even though it was only an envelope with a photo of the boots inside since we wanted to make sure we ordered the right size. This afternoon I took Jillian out for her first little lesson and to get to know Cisco. We had a lot of fun together and she was a great student!
At first I led her around a bit and talked her about the basics of equitation and then I let her try riding on her own. Cisco isn't too used to having a bit in his mouth (due to a past tongue injury) so he played around with it a lot, but he did a good job with keeping her safe. We mostly just walked around the pasture since Jillian was riding bareback and worked on turning, stopping and starting. 
Hyrum wanted to ride as well, so he hopped on Jena and then they both had fun riding around the pasture together. This was the first time that I've let Hyrum ride 100% on his own and he actually did a great job. Jena is such a sweet little pony, she really took care of him. He even got her trotting around which he thought was great fun. I can't wait to take Hyrum and Jillian out on the trails together and see how the ponies do. That will be super fun even if I don't have a horse of my own to ride. Hopefully we can make this a weekly or biweekly activity for the kids since the ponies really need the exercise and we are all having fun learning together. Happy Trails Ahead!!
