We jumped BIG jumps...and it was pretty!

 

Oh HAPPY DAY!!!! Today is Jacel lesson day and she was kind enough to fit us in. She offered to come here at 8 am. Sure thing! Because it's glorious to roll out of bed, feed ponies, get dressed, tack up, and be on at 8 am because I HAVE AN ARENA NOW!!! :) Yay!

 

 

I told Jacel that I wanted to jump but that I had one request... of jumping at least one fence or so at novice height because I signed up for a Novice CT at Ashland and didn't want to freak myself out. She said she thought it was a great plan and would be a good prep for Stableview. So we did. We started out over a high cross rail to work on his form. She wanted me to trot it. He can trot it on the left rein but the right rein he cheats. But she said it was fine because his form was good. But that's our homework... to trot small fences. So then we made it a bit bigger and cantered it and worked on his form. She said that she wanted to work on his form because when we went training level it would be more important. And then she said "Yes, I said training level"!!! :) :) eeeeeaaahhhh. :) So then we did the grid, which was definitely not set up for horse strides, so I'm glad I'm not losing my mind. Dan loped through it and the first time I sort of helped him. She told me not to because he has to learn to correct himself. So the second time we did it and I didn't help him but he was perfect through it so it didn't matter. Ha ha! And, she said the back oxer was 3'3"! Which is training height!!! Yahoo! He felt so good over it too. So then she set up another fairly decent sized fence and we did that twice. Then she set up four fences for us and had us do the mini course. And he was so perfect! He just loped over all 4 fences like they were nothing! And they were at least novice size, so yay! We quit with that. But it's so nice how well he's going now. Basically he is in front of my leg. I don't have to spur or whip or get after him. He's just already there. I just leg yield him and move his belly out of the way and then he can move himself and go nicely. I just need to remember to sit up, keep my shoulders back, sit a little bit in a driving seat without driving, and at the very last stride, slightly push my hands at him... and he's perfect! I'm so grateful she took video for me!

 

So then I put the horses in the middle field because Jean wanted to jump the XC jumps in the big pasture. They were a little jazzed up because of the two "strangers" in their pasture. And Dan and Fleck were fighting at the gate when it turned Dan out so I had to let him go. They were fine but then Dan and Funny were running around like fools and I couldn't catch Dan to get his halter off until they were done playing. Hooligans!