We’re doing it!! Cotton and I are jumping all by ourselves!
After the amazing
breakthrough we had this past week, we have been jumping up a storm – we
spent the day after our lesson going over the same trot pole set up.
The next day we did it again but without the closely spaced trot poles.
Today we only warmed up over that jump twice each direction then moved
to the arena where we went over a variety of very small jumps – the
highest was only 2’3”.
I can tell Cotton is
eating this up – usually by the end of a 6 day work week on the flat the
grass is much more interesting than my apple but after spending every
day this week jumping he came right to me like he hadn’t seen me in a
week!
But the really good news is that I am beginning to feel
what happens when we jump. Things are slowing down. I can feel the
difference between when he remains balanced those last 2 strides and
when he throws himself at the jump. When he takes off with his hind
end under him the quality of his canter on the other side is much better
too - and he’s easier to control. We are both approaching the jumps
much more relaxed!
The only glitch we had
today was going over this two foot blue jump. The first time we took it
his back feet hit the rail. The next time we did it he jumped me out
of the tack! I nearly came off. That must have upset him because the
third time he threw himself at it the last 2 strides. OK, this time I
was NOT stupid - recognizing that things were deteriorating, I took him
out to the baby jump we warmed up over. He did that perfectly
the first time so we returned to the arena and continued. I didn’t take
the blue one again, however, because it now had some emotional baggage
attached to it and I wanted to have a successful day – Lesley can help
us figure that out next lesson. We did about a handful more jumps,
ending on the highest of the day, and our hour was up.
Lesley said he will
never be a hunter – he’s a show jumper! He will always “pat the ground”
that last stride and switch leads and rush a little. That’s completely
fine with me – I just need to learn how to ride that! I’ve always been
on hunter types that just tick along and I need to learn how to handle
this new jumping style. Lesley’s strategy is helping. By forcing us to
slow things down I can start from scratch and learn how to ride him over the jumps and not just sit there and steer! Cotton isn’t the kind of horse you can just sit on. She keeps saying it will be a lot easier as we raise the jumps so I hope this stage will go quickly!
I don’t know what the
next step is – do I begin cantering these small jumps or trotting normal
jumps? Now that I am beginning to feel what’s going on I’d like
to learn how to influence him so he gets a quality jump every time,
rather than have to just take what I get. I also want to learn how to
stick with him like glue over every fence no matter what he does – I’m
tired of jumping ahead of him and getting left behind! I also really
need to work on his canter after the jump. He dive bombs onto his
forehand after his jumps and we have to regroup before we’re ready for
the next one – that’s not good. I think part of it is to just hold the
reins tighter so he can’t pull them out of my hand when he bucks and
does his little hops.
The to-do list is still
pretty long and it will be awhile before I’ll be ready for an event but
my new, relaxed attitude is helping both of us! We’re becoming a team!
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