Lessons from all over

Thursday before the show, Ben and I had a super fun jump lesson. We kept it short and sweet because we had the show in two days and because he was absolutely perfect. JT had a very interesting looking course set up and it was just as much fun to ride as it looked. 

I didn't photograph it, so the above diagram will have to suffice. We did a few passes through, first the straight four stride (brown), then a wide left hand turn to the straight four to bending five (blue) and then a right hand turn again up the triple three to three (red). Then we did the same first two lines (brown to blue) and then the angled three (green). The first time through we didn't angle properly and squeezed in a fourth, but the next time through we GOT IT DONE and went for it and ended on that note. 

Hello gorgeous

Goggles and I had a "jump" lesson later that week that wasn't much of a jump lesson because he decided that cavaletti on their lowest setting needed to be LEPT over. So we gave the baby horse what he needed... a slow, low key day. We trotted two poles at points of a large circle with a line of cavaletti set to be bounce-one-stride-bounce (total of 4 cavaletti) in between. Each time we came down to a walk and then aimed through the caveletti. It took his baby brain a while to catch up, but by the end he was SUPER. He's so interesting, bravery is not going to be a problem for this horse. But he wants to take over and then go quick and then he scares himself. He's got the point of "over, under, or through" but now we've got to get him THINKING about it as he does it. 

Herro handsome! 

I've got to get some profile shots of him soon, he's really grown up and turned into a very handsome horse. Some of the weight gain was aided by the fact that I (finally) did a FEC on him. He had 1350 epg. Holy worms batman. I would second guess myself, but I've done the GY's barn several times and Ben several times at this point and gotten a range of numbers there, so I'm pretty sure the weights, solution, etc etc are all right. Sooo he got Quest Plus, which seems to have worked because two weeks post was 50 epg. 

Sorry dude! 

His newly freed up calories seem to be going to more than a bit of sass. He got checked and adjusted a few days ago, and was a bit locked up in his neck again. But he did spend most of one evening standing straight up on his hind legs at his friend, most likely the source of that issue. And now my calendar is marked for FEC every 2 months. 

While we sorted out Goggles, I got the opportunity to take Amanda's Henry for a bop around cross country last week at Majestic. He is as perfect as described. Several times I thought there should be about five more strides before a jump and he appropriately did three and then left the ground, rolling his eyes about the silly human. 

He's also a "straight line" horse. I started talking with JT a while ago how some horses walk like drunken sailors as they stare at the world (AHEMbenCOUGH) and some horses have a destination in mind and GO. Henny is very much a going where you point him kinda guy. We jumped the tires and then cantered right in between a few upper level jumps without so much as a shoulder bulging to a little cabin. I was delighted.