Happy Jumping Dinosaur!!

 

Today was a fun day! We met Jacel at Ashland for a jump lesson. And he was on FIRE! :) She was a little late so we walked to the lake to let him have a drink. He drank a little bit and ate some daisies. Those are for smelling Dan... smelling!! ;) 

 

So then we trotted up the hill and got to the jump arena right as Jacel pulled in. She had her two dogs with her, but Dan didn't care. And they were good dogs. So we warmed up while she set up some fences. And they looked big. But not scary. Like... that's a good novice fence! So yay for that. We worked on striding because... we've gotten to where we can't make the distances and quite frankly, at 17 hands, there is NO reason why he shouldn't put a 3 in a 3! So we had a 4 stride and a 3 stride set up, and then there was a 6 or 7 stride. We warmed up over a single fence and he was good. We had to remember to leg yield his barrel out of the way and then... we talked about how dressage horses are told to go in a gait until they are told otherwise. In other words, you don't have to keep 'riding' so hard. BUT... jumping horses need to have a little constant reminder/encouragement, because the fence backs them off. So, I need to be tickling his belly with each stride. This will help him lift his belly, move his barrel, thus lightening up the front end and keeping the hind end reaching underneath himself. And then, I've got to keep my elbows moving, to keep a connection but not collect him. And then, open my knees, move BOTH my hands to the left to get him jumping straighter, and... viola! Success!

So then we progressed to the 3 stride. The first time through, Dan almost had the 3, but chipped at the last second. But because I was upright and doing the things, he was able to jump it without rolling over his shoulder. We came through again and it was beautiful! In fact, he almost didn't have enough room for the 3 strides! Then we came again, the single, to the 3 stride, and around to the 4 stride. He jumped super awesome through the first 3 fences and then I got all frazzled on whether to push him left or right and panicked instead of just riding what I felt and it wasn't straight, but we got the 3. So then we came back again and nailed it all and then went around to the 7 stride, which could have been a 6 stride, we didn't walk it, but he nailed it too! In 6! We quit with that! He was super. He was forward, in front of my leg, jumping from the hind end, lifting through the shoulders, and... happy! He was having fun too. :) :) 

 

Oh, and.. this morning... there was shenanigans! I had my neurology appointment in athens at 9:30 am. I left at 8:30 and made it on time. Just after I checked in my phone rang. It was Joel. Oh crap!! What now?!? I couldn't answer but texted him that I couldn't. He texted back that two of my horses were out. Dang it! What? How!? I told him I was an hour away and he said he was trying to catch them. Then he texted back about 20 minutes later saying he had gotten them and they were fine. He said he'd show me how they got out when I got home. HEATHENS!! He never said which two it was, but.. I'll give you two guesses. ;) 

When I got home, I found where the problem was. The gate by the arena... and by the cabin... barely goes through the clasp. So if you push on it at all, it pushes right through the clasp. I had it chained so that wouldn't happen. Well, Monday night Mike walked out there to watch me ride and went through that gate I think. And I guess he didn't rechain it. He says there wasn't a chain on it, but... I know I put it on. But regardless, at least they didn't tear the fence down or anything.