Success and success?

So Dutch waited until a few days after our show to cast himself and band the crap out of his front left.  This is a typical Dutch move and his stall has 2x4's along the walls where he likes to lay for just this reason.  He was never lame, but boots and wraps irritated the whacked spot.  Cue a week or two of R & R.

When we had a break in the crap weather AND Magic Trainer was in our area; I figured it wouldn't hurt to have eyes on Uno for a short and fun jump school.

We did our flat warmup hunter style and Uno felt AMAZING! We had a few scrambly moments, but keeping my leg on and having forward thinking hands he really started to make a round shape through his back.  Magic Trainer then set up a simple verticle with a placement pole. It looked big but was probably 2' 6" or so. 
More of this please!!

Knowing that if she let me look at the scary jump I would fall back on my very stupid old habit of locking my eye on the horizon and never actually looking at where I was supposed to be going. So my ride directions were as follow:


  1. Follow the jump back to the apex of the turn  
  2. Use outside aids to control the turn WITHOUT pulling back
  3. Stare down my chosen turning until it passes below his ears
  4. Look at the ground pole
  5. 3 strides out feel and see if I need to put on more leg or steady with my shoulders
  6. Look at the placing pole until it goes below his ears
  7. Eyes on the top rail
AND IT WORKED!!!
Cooling out the bestest pony

Ok, so it took two passes for me to unfreeze enough to be effective in my ask before the ground pole, but even when I wasn't effective it was never scrambly and I did not freeze.

AND THEN SHE RAISED THE JUMP!!!

It took me three tries to get the canter forward enough for him to get over this new height, which was solidly Novice height,

BUT HE DID AND WE DID NOT EVEN DIE!!!
I iz so smart!

We only did it once because the wheels totally fell off when we switched to the right, more on that after the vet comes out to adjust him, but this was the most comfortable I have felt riding FORWARD at fences since forever.

I makes food-lady so brave.
When we finished I stuffed so many treats into his pony face and turned him back out naked to roll around like a little pig.  Once the vet has come out and helped us figure out where he is out of whack we are going to be ON FIRE!!!


Please no fire food-lady! 




Comments

  1. what an awesome feeling, sounds like Uno likes this whole jumping thingy!

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  2. That's awesome! I'm a chicken about jumping so the 2'6" would have been enough for me!! Love the way you broke things down to keep your eye engaged and active!

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    Replies
    1. Honestly my trainer is a saint. I panic flail at the start of most XC schooling unless the first jump is TINY and tend to freeze whenever the fence looks bigger than I expect. She has been SO good at building me back up without letting me stagnate. I went from wanting to run a BN before the horse was 20 (He is 7 BTW) and tentatively scheduling one for the end of this year.

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