Well today was interesting... I dropped my truck off this morning for my christmas present from Mike - heated seats!!! Yay! But that meant no lessons for me as I didn't have a way to get there. But then Jacel messaged and said that no one was wanting lessons other than me and Jean so she offered to come to us! Yay!! So my day was a bit jam packed but it worked out. After we dropped the truck off we stopped at Dad's office on the way home to say hi to him. Then once I got home I ate some lunch and then was hoping to get my cavaletti's painted. I forgot to get screws so I couldn't finish them, but I figured I could at least get one coat of paint on them so maybe I'd have them done by Thursday to use since I would likely be riding at home. So I did that. Then I almost ran out of time to get ready for my lesson. Unfortunately, I didn't get on as early as I would have liked and been able to hack him up and down the hill a few times first, but oh well. We walked up to the arena and Jacel was still riding one of Jeans, so I figured I had time to warm up. Plus.. ha! She laughed at my attempt to set up her exercise she had set me. To be fair.. I think the people just measured wrong! I did it like the picture showed, with the right amount of distance between the fences, but.. she tweaked it. Ha! No worries as it gave me time to warm him up.
Except.. he didn't want to do anything. It was so unlike him. Like... I don't think I've EVER felt him like this. He wasn't lazy necessarily... he just wanted to stop and stay stopped. When we were talking, he was on the buckle with his nose all the way to the ground and just sat there. Nose on the ground. In order to get him moving I had to almost pony club kick him... repeatedly. And once I got him moving, he wasn't super lazy... I mean, he'd go. He'd trot, he'd canter... he just really made me insist. And as soon as I backed off, he broke to the halt and would put his head down. It was bizarre. Even Jacel thought it was weird. She did say that she didn't see any lameness... no neurological stuff. He just look fatigued. She did point out that perhaps he overdid it with the jigging and cantering in place at the fox hunt. But that was 3 days ago?! But... it does make sense that maybe he was muscle sore today. Or muscle fatigued. ??? Who knows! So we didn't work him too hard but we did have our lesson. And he was cooperative. He wasn't on fire but he was cantering and forward enough. It was just so odd. But.. whatever, he didn't say NO... he just said "I'll rest here while you guys talk". ha ha. Anyways....
I had set up a line of 3 fences with 4 strides between. Then the center fence had four fences set up diagonal to it... so you could jump the line down the center... or you could jump the diagonal line, straight line but the middle jump was angled, or.. you could do bendy lines, or jump on an arced line.. We started with the straight line and did the 4 nicely. Yay! Jacel also mentioned that later I could work on doing it in 3 or 5. Or 3 to 5. Or 5 to 3. Or maybe 5 to 4 and 4 to 5...
Then we did the diagonal line with the middle fence angled. They were small so it wasn't too tough, but the question was there and that's what we were working on. Jacel said to jump the first fence straight and lined up with the third fence straight. Then once we jumped the first fence, look at the third fence, line up, then focus on the second fence. That way we kept the line but also could focus on jumping the second fence. The trick was to keep the line, but also keep the rhythm. It worked well! And maybe, subconsciously, that's what I do, but it was nice to have it spoken out loud and as a reminder. We did that fairly well. Then she had us jump the diagonal line to the middle fence to the 3rd fence on the straight line. So we did an s curve from the diagonal to the "angled" fence that was no longer angled because of the S curve. Then we continued straight. And... it wasn't too bad on the left lead because Dan is happy to bend left and drift right and we put the extra stride in that was created by the bendy line and carried on. But... coming off the right lead was tough! Dan did not want to get off my right leg and go left. So I had to really ride. Which meant... use my right leg, ride the pivot with my upper body and arms - in other words... Keep my elbow at my side, don't cross over his neck with the reins, and turn his shoulders with my upper body and "rein channel". Except... I can't just ride the shoulders. They are important, yes, but... I have to engage the hind end first. So.. I must include inside leg. The first time or two Dan didn't listen to my aids and we chipped and it was ugly. The third time I only rode the shoulders and didn't ride the barrel and hind end and it was uglier than when Dan messed it up. Jacel called me out on it. But she also pointed out that at least I was doing half right and that Dan still managed to not roll over his shoulder. So then we fixed it and I rode it right and Dan listened better. It's still MUCH tougher that way. Which was a helpful reminder!
So we'll practice that again some when we jump next at home. Hopefully we'll get to it before our next jump lesson. :) And hopefully there's nothing majorly wrong with Dan and he'll be fine next time I ride.
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