Thursday, September 19, 2019

A Tale of Two Lessons: Lesson the First

I had a lesson last Friday on Peebs and then an unexpected lesson on Monday on Scottie. I can't remember the last time I had lessons three days apart.  I wish I could do that all the time!

#goodboypeebers

We've been doing lots of trot poles and canter poles with Peebs in the past few weeks.  I had the chiro out to check him two weeks ago and she recommended the trot poles to help strengthen his stifles and hind end.  All the pole work had me feeling like doing gymnastics so I asked my trainer if I could set one up for my lesson. We ended up doing a bounce to a one stride to a one stride and it was so fun!

My trainer had us start with the last one stride and built it back to front.  We nailed the one the first time out so she added the other one stride before it. Again we came in perfectly and the one to one was super easy. Trainer then put up the bounce and told me to do exactly the same thing and not to over think it. I just turned and started at her, asking her "Why would you tell me that?!?" Because of course I then had to over think it and screw up our pace coming in. Peebs earned his cookies because I found a half stride to the bounce and he had to do some fancy footwork to get us out of it. We did come back and fix it and my trainer raised the final vertical every other time we went through.


We ended up doing 2'9" the last time through and while it looked big, it didn't look scary big or like we couldn't get over it. We haven't jumped that big in a while and I was actually tempted to ask if it could go up to 3' but Peebs was getting tired and I didn't want to push it. I'm sure cantering down to a single at 2'9" might look bigger than the final fence in a grid, but I was proud of myself for not freaking out about the fences going up a few holes.


2 comments:

  1. It's always nice when you can get back to back lessons to really drill down on a concept, and having a lesson on two different horses is great too since you can really hone in on your part!

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  2. Grids are my favorite! You two look great!
    I especially like using a grid to start jumping higher. Essentially, once you're in there, you don't have to do much to get out, and the distance is set perfectly, so the bigger jump SHOULD work out easily. (Doesn't always though does it?! Haha!)

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