Turtle Steps

Title inspiration here, essentially another, cuter, word for baby steps. 

Butterball and I trekked down to PW's solo on Monday. 

His face was looking so darling, but he's standing with his left front internally rotated, making his shoulder muscling look terrible. I didn't notice that part until I was texting my husband the adorable picture. 

We had a very productive jump lesson. Rather than a single warm up fence, he sent us straight into some roll back turns from a vertical to an oxer. I had, once again, internalized not shoving the horse at the fence, so things were flowing much better than the prior week. We then tackled the five stride line. In the video you will see that it was a six stride line the first time. Our usual problem of landing and dawdling. PW had me take him back over the single vertical and land and LEG. Ideally without flapping my body at him at the same time, but y'know, sometimes these things happen. But I did it well enough that we fixed the line. 

We then tackled the whole course, including a fun two to one stride triple that he just ATE up. PW had shortened that a tiny bit, and you can see in the video that Butterball was prepared to tackle the show distance two stride and got deep to the middle element. 

Nailing the last fence of the triple

One of the consistent things between the lesson the week before and this lesson was feeling like Butterball was leaning around the corners. The week prior I had whined and blamed. Then PW told me I was leaning in like crazy. Hrm. Okay. So this lesson I concentrated on equal weight in both stirrups around the turns. If I felt like pony pants didn't follow me out as I put weight in both stirrups, then I booted him with my inside leg at the girth to step into a solid outside hand. Whaddya know, the focus on straightness and lifting his shoulders up led to much better courses and jumps. 

We were flowing really well through the first course, so PW asked if I wanted to go higher than 0.90m. Butterball felt great and, see above, my riding was much better this lesson and none of the jumps looked big at 90, so I was okay with it. Initially I was picking out the one jump I wanted him to raise, when he suggested that may not be the best way to help me ride well because it might, perhaps, lead to overthinking that one fence. Fair enough. So everything went up a single hole. We jumped around relatively well, but he opted for the chip instead of the gap at the five stride line - I didn't see a distance at all, so I was happy that he made a decision and left the ground. If I had supported him, he probably would've taken the gap. I did then make a decision to sit up and wait for six in the line instead of five. Hooray for thinking! The next jump was a bit uncharacteristic though. After our left hand roll back turn, he did a weird leap over the vertical. PW felt like he was getting tired. But we finished strong with the liverpool. 

PW and I were both pleased that he WENT over the oxer in the five/six stride line, so he dropped it down two holes to make it easier for the tired pony and had us come again, starting with that line. This time Butterball took the gappy distance and powered down the line in five strides. We had been planning on the left hand turn to the vertical to fix that as well, but PW shouted to pull him up and that Butterball had just fixed his own mistake and that was EXACTLY what we wanted to end on. I hopped off and gave him lots of pats while I walked him out. 

On Friday PW came up to Ms. GY's again. He did a training ride on Butterball. One of his first orders of business was forward and back in the canter. He wanted him to come back smoothly and softly. But at the same time, he didn't fuss back at the pony if the pony fussed. Interesting the way that made things much less dramatic much more quickly. 

Then he popped around a few courses, working on his balance before the fences. And overall they looked great. Butterball had a few cranky moments, but I think that may be because his normal rider (sheesh) lets him get away with half answers sometimes that PW doesn't tolerate. 

Multiple fences, including the five stride line, were set at a meter and both of us were pleased with pony's confidence around the course. He didn't have any doubts or moments of questioning, even when the five stride line was a bit long and he had to reach for the large oxer. Good boy! More deposits in the trust bank.