Real Life

We had our first jump lesson in a bit last night (unless we want to count the "RIDE HER LIKE A PONY" shouting over the past weekend as a lesson...because let's be honest, we could - that's pretty much the take home from every lesson anyway ;)

Midge had done vaulting the night prior and felt  a little tired, but game to warm up. As we got going, she ran out of steam and wasn't the amazing pony of the weekend, but she kept trying, so I was happy.

More this level of energy/enthusiasm than the excited pony of Sunday.

Our course was a long complicated one, as follows:

We started with figure eights over fence 1 and the corner. We had issues at the corner. We've jumped tiny corners before, but it's been a while. Also, this corner was wider than I normally set them and balanced off a barrel for the narrow end - usually I use a single jump standard. The wheels were turning in Midge's mind...do they want me to step in there? Jump it? Go around? Bounce it on the wide side? First stop was an honest one...she really did need/want to look at it and figure it out. Second one was on me...not being confident enough myself about getting to the other side and adding to her doubts. Third time was one of those 'spectacular' stop and leap things that somehow worked out with all of us remaining intact. Fourth time was good and we incorporated it into bits of the course without worry for a few rounds.

Then, we put the whole thing together, and added the corner a second time coming from the opposite direction. One more stop. T needs to sit up and ride decisively, B needs to hold up her end of the bargain too. She's a pony and very quick to realize when I'm not 100% committed and there is a potential out. We ended on a good note on a bending line from the corner, 4 strides to a vertical.

Ginny says hi. She's still her normal super social self and keeps an eye on me everywhere I go. Love that she's here at the barn and we can visit every day, even though she's very well loved by her lease girls :)

My recap sounds like there was a ton of struggle. There was, but I didn't ever feel discouraged. Unlike previous lessons, Midge didn't use the corner thing as a reason to shut down and refuse to play at all. I didn't get frustrated. Surprisingly, I drove home last night feeling pretty positive. B didn't quit even though she was feeling tired and was confused by the corner.  EC used my worry over the corner as the distraction and set the rest of the jumps substantially bigger than I would have been OK with last month, and we navigated all that without issue. Funny how perspective can work for you, everything else looked relatively straightforward compared to the big evil corner lol. Our pace was good, the lines rode well, B was turning well and was dead accurate and straight everywhere I put her. So, a ton of positives . The corner set up was a new thing for us, and yes, I could have ridden more decisively and positively. Oh well, such is life.  I feel like we both brought the best we could on the day and worked through things together to end on a positive note. That means far more to me than perfect rounds.

SHARE: