We started with a soft, bouncy trot going into our recent fave jump with placing poles 9 feet on either side. My directions were to not squeeze him off the ground. I didn't and he did the tiniest school pony trot over the fence. I was told to give him a TAP on landing and kick him forward into a gallop away from the fence if he did that again. Got it! But then I completely dropped the contact. We paused and went over the directions again. I was to create a soft, bouncy trot to jump from and then maintain contact throughout the exercise, but it was his responsibility to get us over the fence. The first few were not cute, but after two TAPS on landing, he was taking me to the jump MUCH more convincingly. Cool!
Then we moved on to stringing things together.
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| Very obviously not to scale. I found it easier to hand draw than screw around in MS Paint now that I don't have a touch screen tablet |
TBH I'm not sure what the gymnastic line was on the left. I think it was two strides between but each cross rail had a 9' placing pole at the base of it. You would think that meant I hadn't ridden through it, but I did, several times. The pink oxer is a brand new pink rolltop that is pretty spooky that we had done a few small circles around at the walk and trot during our warm up. The first time we headed towards it, I squeezed, but also leaned my shoulders at it. Aaaand suddenly found myself on the ground. I mean, not suddenly, it wasn't a dirty stop, there was plenty of time for me to do something else, but there I was.
JT trotted over and caught Butterball who had only gone a few strides away. She asked me how I was, I told her I was unsure about my ankle but that it wasn't broken. After a few more minutes of sitting and contemplating life (and discussing how I leaned rather than keeping my shoulders back), I stood up and it felt OK. Not fantastic, but usable. So I popped back on and she dropped the rails over the offending pink oxer. She said "Lean back by a MILE" so I did, and wouldn't ya know it, pony popped right over. Somewhat in dramatic fashion, so we trotted back and forth until it was a non-event. Then we resumed the course, including adding in the direct 4 stride line to the oxer after the placing pole exercise. It all felt AMAZING, he was taking me over the fences and all I had to do was establish the proper canter. The distances were coming up so easily as well and we didn't chip at the base of anything.
Nothing like a little sprain to really reinforce NOT jumping ahead (or leaning prior to jumping ahead). The sting in my ankle was a steady little reminder to keep my shoulders back.
It felt like the lesson was the final piece to the work we've been doing recently to make sure everything is comfy and good in his world - the feet, the saddle, my position (for the most part). I had gone through a couple months of feeling like I had taken him a few steps back in his training - he was so EASY to jump when I bought him, why was I feeling like I had to push for every stride and every jump even as his canter was getting stronger and stronger. I think one part of this was that he was the obvious winner in the comparison to how it felt to jump Goggles. But another part was that I was used to micromanaging every stride, and he was happy enough to acquiesce to not going unless I was pushing. But he's a really clever pony, so once we were sure he was comfortable in every way, it was time to remind him that his part is getting us over the fence in a pleasant fashion. MY job, reminded by my ankle, is to create the canter, keep my damn body still/back as we approach the fence, and then press my hands into his neck over the fence.
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| The most civilized posed picture I've managed to take of these two |
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