I just had my first horse riding lesson today!! so awesome! We all rid ponies (large ponies!). my pony was called Smoky and he was a light grey pony. he was very gentle and easy to ride although he was a leetle slow sometimes. my friend rode a black pony called Dylan but my friend told me he wasn't very nice to ride. my brother rode another black pony called Comet. anyway, on with the post! ok the ride. so we mounted our ponies at the stables and started to walk to the paddocks. to start walking on your pony, you have to kick your pony twice with both feet in the stirrups and say "walk on!" in a firm voice. so we started to walk along this dirt track (actually, a mud, poo, water, dirt and wee track! I know, right!) in a straight line. then we turned left and got to a paddock where there was obstacles like jumps and stuff. so in that paddock we practiced our steering. to steer, you have to look in the direction you want to go in and then turn the reins in that direction, say, left for example. so to practice, we had to go in and out of tires while keeping in a straight line. I think I did pretty good at that, but ocasionly I missed a tire or two. also we walked over poles and even did some jumping. it was a tiny jump though, so don't worry. just before we jumped, we had to bend down and grip the ponies mane, so we were safe going over the jump. so we did the obstacle course a few times and then started walking to the arena. the arena was a patch of land with obstacles in it. but instead of grass, there was a mixture of sand and pebbles on the ground. there we did some trotting. to get your pony to trot, you keep kicking your pony with both feet until he starts trotting. I know it sounds cruel but it actually doesn't hurt the pony! weird aye?  then we started to walk back to the stables. there we dismounted our ponies and fed them a carrot each. it was sooooooooooooo much fun! oh yeah, the riding school we went to was Heathcote valley riding school. see ya soon readers!