Don't Panic

Butterball and I had another lesson with PW on Monday. We had done a tiny bit of jumping on our own last week. I was setting fences at home, which I wasn't at all sure anyone was going to be around for the next several hours, and had an *interesting* interaction when the other boarder turned up. 

Boarder: "Are you going to jump?" 

Me: "Yeah a couple of things."

Boarder: "oh cool! You're going to put them up more though, right?" 

Me: "Nope"

Boarder: "....Oh..."

Rude. 

Anyways. We actually jumped twice, once in the myler and once in his rope hackamore. Both seasons we played over our single cavaletti friend to warm up. I'm not sure where that exercise has been my whole life, but it is so so useful to us to just repeatedly canter a single cavaletti till I can get him smoothly waiting for it. 

The second session I incorporated the barrels and included a solo barrel on its side. Well, sort of solo. I got lazy and tucked it next to the cross rail to use that standard to mark one side. Which Butterball, my good, honest pony, found a *bit* confusing to be pointed at from a distance. Duh, human. Ms. GY was around though and helped me fix it, which did involve disassembling the cavaletti to use those blocks as book ends for it. He understood it much better alone and actually jumped it quite straight and well, whereas he'd been twisting over it when it was smooshed next to the standard/jump, I think feeling like he didn't fit. 

After we finished with our hackamore jumping, I pulled out the neck rope again. This time we did some trotting in addition to walking and halting. He was super and we were able to smoothly do 20-30 m loops around the arena. 

His face when he hears someone getting into the cookies in the tack room

In our dressage rides, we've really been working on creating two different canters. It's hard work, but we can now usually canter the long side in a slow collected canter before we lose it. I didn't do much of trying to create that canter while jumping at home, but we did have the bounce line that I asked for a bit of a wait before with my voice and shoulders. And shockingly when I did that he rocked back and lifted instead of rolling over his shoulder.

I think that combo of rides at home actually managed to prep us for our lesson with PW. In the lesson we started with 3 x 9 foot bounce poles to a vertical. It was set pretty short off the end of the arena and when we were coming off the left lead, I KEPT letting his danged right shoulder slip through my right side. Staring at the inside corner of the first bounce pole did help some, but it was still tricky. This is also where we have trouble with our single cavaletti. If he has to take a longer spot off the left lead he almost always lands on the right in a bit of a heap. But his left lead is actually his stronger/straighter/better lead. So... 

After we got the vertical right, he added an oxer one stride after. Keep the ride the same. Then an oxer five strides out. Land from the first oxer, GO for the first three strides, assess/half-halt for the next two. He was jumping that really well and PW built the oxer up pretty large. Then we added in the rest of the course. Land from the gymnastics line, turn right (but GO STRAIGHT immediately after) to cross the diagonal and jump an oxer; then seven to nine stride bending line to a liver pool, which required going straight for the first five or six strides, then turning to the liver pool, it was a tricky line. Then across the diagonal again five stride line oxer to oxer. Right hand turn and up the long side for oxer to vertical in six. I got a funky distance to the first oxer a couple of times, but he has POWER now and will happily leave the ground from short or long as appropriate. The liver pool I COULD NOT get right for the life of me. I think the left hand turn at the end of the bending line was the really challenging part. Gotta continue working that left lead and adjustability. 

I had started the lesson telling PW that if he thought he should ride him in the meter class the first day at HITS then that was totally fine with me. But we finished with an entire course at 1-1.10m and PW telling me there was no need for him to ride if I kept riding like that. Butterball was jumping SUPER. Over that height there is definitely an actual effort, but I was mostly able to stay with him this go round. And even though I KEPT getting him to a weird spot at the liver pool, he was still happily leaving the ground. He did land and kick in protest once when I got him to a deep spot AND dumped him at the base. But I just did that once and so he only protested once. Sorry bud. 

He is just the coolest horse. Jumping a course of this size wasn't actually even on my goal list, so it is really cool to have it all coming together (cue either a disastrous show or lesson LOL). PW teaches in a way that makes so much sense. It's not just "don't dump him when you don't see a spot or it is going to be deep", it's "when you see a deep spot and drop the contact, he lengthens further and that spot gets worse." OH! Clarifying the why of what is happening makes it so much easier to follow.