Homework

Butterball and I tackled our own version of the jumper circle and set up four barely raised poles on a 20m circle. 

Seen in the distance here, alternate poles were on the low setting of the blocks, the alternate ones were only raised on the low setting on the outside. All poles were striped to help the pilot. 

We started walking around the circle, me focusing on our track and bend, him dealing with stepping over the poles. EM revealed to us back in the fall how much both of us can struggle with a single pole. So we walked a few circles until we were smoothly stepping over each pole. Then we picked up the trot and went right into it again. Again, sometimes he would end up almost under the pole too much to step up, so we trotted until we got it evenly and smoothly again. 

Sometimes after work you just need to sit on your pony while he grazes

Next was canter, four strides fit smoothly between poles, but it still took a minute to get that. Again, the bend and track were mine, sorting out his feet was his. Off both leads if he had to take a "long spot" over the pole, he was more likely to fling through his outside shoulder, loose the bend, and change leads. I struggled to create the inside bend without just bending his neck. The feel was the same that I've harped on before, aim for the inside-middle of the pole, leg yield out to hit the middle of the pole. We took a break and then worked on five strides. To the left we got it done the first time, but the right took a few tries. As we were going over the pole I needed to be aiming for the next one. 

After that, we took a walk around the field and did a few trot XC fences. He hasn't walked fences in a month or two since PW was doing it with him, but it seemed like a nice day to bring back that idea (I'm not brave or coordinated enough to walk fences that are bigger than 18", but I can certainly trot them). The rhythm and track were mine, "1-2-1-2-1-2", the jump was his. He rolled over his shoulder a bit to the bigger log, but rocked back and jumped the novice roll top beautifully. We called it a day on that note. 

That guy. Confident and lovely over it. 

Throughout this ride (and every ride), I'm desperately trying to keep in mind that every aid should have a purpose and response. I most easily get tricked into tapping with my legs every stride to keep the motor going. But to quote JV, "every aid creates tension", so minimizing unnecessary aids is essential. Constantly running through my head: Am I nudging every stride because? Or am I using a soft leg aid when he slows or needs assistance creating bend or direction. Is he responding appropriately to each leg aid based on the magnitude of the aid? If I had to use anything other than a light touch/brush, then did I go back and test the lightest aid again? NBD, just trying to keep approximately 100 things straight in my head at one time while controlling all of my own body parts and noticing all of his body parts. 

Cutest ears and shadow - I love that you can see his forelock in the shadow

Circle of Doom - Jumper Version

In keeping with our theme of fixing any holes while keeping the jumps small, Butterball and I tackled the circle of doom exercise with PW on Monday. It was hard. I'd also only ever done this exercise with cavaletti. I guess I'm riding with a true jumper trainer now, so jumps it is LOL.  I told PW at one point that it must be good for us because it felt so awful. It highlighted what I see in a lot of our videos: pony pants is smart enough to have his leads for the turns 90% of the time. But when given the choice, he prefers to jump from the right lead and will even change in a related line that we entered in the left lead to leave the ground for the second fence from the right lead. 

Pony vacuum in the barn aisle with the golden light

The circle was only three of four fences, going vertical to oxer to vertical. We started by jumping one and skipping one, you can see a LOT of different leads happening there. Then we added two in a row then the next time through went for the on stride 6 between all three fences. Eesh. I was also struggling with driving him at the fences this ride. You can see PW coaching me to wait for it. In my head I was indignantly going "I'm NOT driving him", but the video says otherwise. 

He also told me I was the problem not looking early enough and not using my outside aids to get it done when I whined about what crookedness was leading to us struggling so much. TBH, we've spent a long time riding FORWARD and STRAIGHT away from fences that landing and doing so much was a whole new challenge for my brain. Look at the next fence as you're in the air, open the inside rein slightly, close your outside leg and lift the outside hand to create the wall to bring him around. 

We finally did get it both directions, sadly not captured on the video. It was more of BB being a clever dude and figuring out what we were going for and less of me sorting out how to ride the outside of the horse and stick to the inside track after/while jumping the oxer. 

We can definitely continue this work at home. I had put two poles on a 15m circle at 12 and 6 and we were struggling with hitting the middle of the poles every time. Some combination of both of our inherent crookedness means that he wants (or I allow or create) to fling his shoulders right when he leaves the ground, widening the arc of the circle especially tracking left. Correctly doing this exercise goes back to what EM had us working on: creating bend and softness and aiming for the inside of the pole/jump so you can slightly leg yield out to get to the center. Otherwise I end up trying to pull him in which further exacerbates the falling out through the outside shoulder. 

But put another check box next to this ride for jumped all the fences confidently. When he awkwardly knocked the rail on the vertical with a hind leg I gave him plenty of pats and good boys for that. PW suggested moving on to some course work after we got the six strides x2 in both directions. I declared my brain dead and opted out. So perhaps if the weather cooperates we'll go back for a second session this week. 

In addition to a lot of leads there was a decent amount of bucking. I am watching that closely to see if that means he is sore somewhere or if that means that he is protesting the challenge of the exercise.