So... Real talk... Part of this jumping at home thing is making mistakes and then fixing them. I made several mistakes and rode an under powered canter to an end of lesson height jump. Butterball smartly opted no, said he didn't have enough canter to either take the long spot or pat the ground as he'd done for me twice already. But he's an honest dude and opted no at the last second and slid into the fence, scaring both of us a bit. Two days later we came back to fix our mistakes but I rode underpowered to a one stride with an oxer as the out and leaned at the in. He declined. We dropped the oxer to a vertical, re-approached and got it done.
Looking like he forgives me for my fuck ups as long as there are cookies
We had another at home session a week later where we started out without enough pace, again, but finished up really well. He took me to the gappy spot at one oxer and popped through the two stride like it was NBD. It definitely gave both of us more confidence.
I did in fact slowly raise these... started over the block jumps then popped the other ones up two holes after we had successfully gone around twice. Laziness in setting jumps doesn't lead to good results it seems...
Honest adult ammy talk... it took some deep breaths to come back out and fix mistakes a few days later. I, again, had that feeling like I was screwing up my perfect pony. Which is a great mindset to get in that leads to tentative riding and no real decisions. Which he just loves... gives him loads of confidence when I sit up there and go "oh SHIT, I dunno!" But it felt like something I had to fix. And we did. By dropping the fences to BN height, getting around confidently, and then moving them back up. And no one is worse for the wear.
This week, we had our first lesson with a new eventing trainer. We solidly managed to show her all of the things we do wrong on our first trip around. But hey, if we'd come out perfect we wouldn't have learned as much. Her major pointer was to land and accelerate for two strides and then settle in to that pace to the fence. That way you're not screwing with your stride length once you've got your eye on the fence. THAT makes sense. She also had me using a slightly lifting under his belly leg aid to get him to let me access his back. Then from that swingy, powerful canter everything seems just fine.
We did the shorter course again, which went swimmingly, then added a few fences including a 1 to a 4. I did start to imagine us stopping at the 1 stride, but I took a page from Ms. GY's book and visualized/felt him popping through it just perfectly. Which is exactly what he did. In my joy at the 1 to the 4, I COMPLETELY forgot about the last two jumps, so ignore the canter mess that occurs around the right hand turn in the last course.
In of the 1
Out
To the 4
Still jumped it just fine in spite of the multiple leads around the turn
I am pretty pleased in the video that I'm not throwing away the contact anymore. When I ask him to go forward, I am, for the most part, there for him which keeps him from flattening and keeps that bouncy uphill canter. It feels like the dressage lessons with JV are also unlocking the instant responses, so when we land and I ask him to move forward, the reaction is right there. Pretty cool stuff.
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