December 15, 2015

Mary Jumps Connor (Again)

Of course, since it's Mary, I expected them to jump.  It's not that Mary doesn't like Dressage, but she lives and breathes hunter/jumper.  So although we were certainly not going XC, I jumped at the chance to put my new full set of Majyk Equipe gen 2 XC Boots to the test.  (And they're my only jump boots!)


Also, horse was on his matching game.  You're welcome.


Mary went in with a game plan of keeping him quiet and bored.  She didn't want him to get tense or rushy, and wanted him to think slowly and carefully about where to place his feet.

They started out with both verticals in the ring just a few inches off the ground, and a line of trot poles.  She asked him to walk over/through all of that as a warmup.






So far so good.   Horse very bored.  She was feeling the 'one flat tire' feeling that indicates he is nowhere near on the aids (aka what happens at the beginning of every lesson) so I schooled her in the shoulder in-canter across the diagonal-collected walk in new direction exercise that JLC taught my trainer, which got him close.

Trot fence, so little impulsion, but horse was bored and quiet.

They moved on to trotting X's, still trying to stay quiet and bored, and finally raised one fence to around 18" and one to 2'.  She quit after just a couple of verticals, because the last one she said was the best fence she's ever felt on him:


She said she can tell a huge difference, especially after doing the SI-canter exercise on him, and can tell that the Dressage work we're doing is making a difference over fences.  That's good to hear from her, since she's the only other person that rides him and only sees him once every few months.

Oh, and...I was very happy he was wearing the XC boots.  The aftermath of walking over the raised fences:
All the colors of the rainbow!

6 comments:

  1. That last picture - wow haha. Definitely getting good use out of those boots!

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    1. Haha yeah, that was from walking over the raised fences. Those were brand new when I put them on, too, all from one session.

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  2. Gotta love horses that give themselves (or their tack in this case) temporary tattoos

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  3. Raised walking fences are very dangerous. Who knew?

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  4. hm video doesn't seem to be working - but so glad to hear he did well! love that Mary had such a careful and well-thought plan for him :)

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