Jump School

I've been a very, very bad pony trainer and haven't had a jump lesson since August! That trend will continue for the foreseeable future, since I'll be moving and at any rate, get way more from our dressage lessons - that's where the struggle currently lies.

Midge is pretty confident and fun motoring around our little courses at home. She's got quite wise about where her feet need to be and I feel like I have a decent feel for the canter needed. with a normal horse, maybe we'd consider moving the fence heights up, but pony is not so scopey and I'm easily bored/demoralized by lessons that feel the same week after week.

Don't get me wrong, there is still a lot I can be working on, but I think a lot of it basically comes down to our confidence levels - B's over new fences in new places, and mine in making the right decisions unsupervised, particularly when things get a bit bigger. We can work on that at home - I'll have access to a lot more 'interesting'  jump equipment and the arena I hack to is not on property. To be honest, B was so backed off and wiggly at our events this past summer it wasn't overly fun and I sort of 'gave up' temporarily and had lost motivation.

But, Best Working Student has still been riding Bridget once every week or two, and helps me jump school with about the same frequency. She loves jumping B and setting up interesting questions for us both so I'm very lucky there - we have improved dramatically with her help this past year! I love her calm and confident vibe, and I think she's going to be a super pro when the time comes.

Yesterday night, we had our final jump school and came up with this:

I actually had butterflies! It's been a while (last winter?) since we did gymnastics and I remember having some struggles keeping my body under control and feeling the right canter. Also, beyond the odd fence or two thrown into our dressage rides to keep things interesting, I have only been jumping B maybe twice a month.

But, not to worry. We keep things small and everything rode great. I felt totally secure and confident in the tack (even with the freakin' slip slidey leggings I mistook for riding tights and packed in my barn bag). That actually makes me happier than maybe it should, because even a couple of years ago I was not feeling secure enough to even want to flat in anything but full seats, and definitely noticed the difference if I wore 'normal' pants. Last night, I didn't notice the leggings beyond the initial slide into the saddle :)

B was on fire, and we actually needed to have a conversation about not dragging me around. She was attacking the bounces, and way over jumping the 1 stride. It was fun.

So, this serves as a friendly reminder that I need to jump more often. B loves it, and I almost always have fun when B is happy.