May 31, 2016

Jumping!!!!

I got to the barn on Sunday at a leisurely 1pm for my first ride after visiting California, and my trainer stuck her head out of the indoor and yelled at me:

"Hey!  I just had a cancellation for my next hour, someone's horse pulled a shoe, do you want a lesson?"

"YES!"

"How about we try jumping?"

"YES!"

Arena expansion progress.  Everywhere you see the crushed lime sub-base will soon be arena!  Ahhhh!!!
And that's how we ended up jumping for the first time in probably six months.  I had no idea what was going to happen.  But...

Connor was awesome!

We spent most of the lesson taking courses of 2' verticals and he could not have been better.  Distances were great, he was adjustable, and he jumped like a normal horse.

"Normal horse"

It gave me hope.  Maybe, just maybe, we're going to event this year.  My trainer and I started discussing what a return to eventing would look like for us if we were to do it this year.

1. Stadium jumps til he's bored.
2. An XC school in which we get him actually tired before he goes out there, so we have none of that back-cracking bucking nonsense he's done the last few times he's been on XC.  Then we'd school small fences, again, until he's bored.
3. As many XC schools without nonsense as we can get.
4. Schooling HT.
5. Maybe go rated in September or October, depending on how successful we are with steps 1-4.

Still one of my favorite pictures of all time.  Nobody told him it was a Starter fence, he could've cleared the BN fence next to it.

I'm still aggressively pursuing straight Dressage competitions too - I don't feel a need to pigeonhole us into a particular discipline.  We'll try all sorts of fun stuff until he tells me no.

16 comments:

  1. Wow its really been 6 months? I didn't realize. Good on you for not pinholing yourselves. I'm not sure what the pressure to do that is all about. Why don't we just do what is fun and then do more fun stuff? I mean it's a hobby which should be way less pressure and a lot more fun.

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    1. I'm with you. Hell if I want to do skijoring with this horse I'd do it. That's why I got a horse "who can take a joke." Yeah, I just guessed at 6 months but your comment made me go back and check - last time he jumped was mid-December!

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  2. This is very exciting!! Connor has so much talent for eventing, I hope you can get his brain in order and get back out there this season! :)

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    1. Thanks! Here's hoping. I'm not doing it again unless he does it safely and with gerbils firmly in place!

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  3. woooo do all the fun things! i love that it's simply a matter of making it fun and pleasant and successful for both of you.

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    1. I think so, and also putting the pause button on when things really weren't working for him, for reasons I'm still not totally clear on. It's like we hit reset on the jumping button - hopefully it works.

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  4. Yes! I'm all for pursuing all the things.

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    1. No kidding man, I'm going to enjoy my horse no matter what sport that ends up being.

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  5. So exciting :D I want to see you and that pon pon jumping again

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    1. Ahhhh me too. And not just because I get hit with a pang of sadness every time I pass my CWD to get to my Dressage saddle.

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  6. Aw yay!! So glad you had a good time.

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  7. Yay jumping!! :) Glad to hear it was such a great lesson!

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  8. I love that! Connor seems like a really cool fellow.

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