We had a great lesson last night. Considering I really haven't done a lot of jumping in the past 6wks I wasn't expecting a lot. Jen had us start by trotting a couple fences and we almost immediately ran into trouble. The approach we took to one diagonal fence had us go through the one deep part of the arena. Buddy would slow way down and when I tried to put leg on he would jump forward and rush the fence. I was having to really hold him the last few strides and it was ugly. Jen had me ride it on a circle and come in on a short approach. First time thru we nailed it!
From there we went to canter a single on the outside, again trying to ride it on a circle. I was really having to ride him forward and make him keep the bend. It flowed well and it's a lot easier for me to see my distance from a shorter approach. Both Jen and I agreed that for now I should ride like I'm on a circle to help me find the distance.
We ended with an outside line, big crossrail to oxer. It was on the left, going up hill; our lest favorite line. Buddy was tired so I really had to push him forward. The line was a forward 5 and Jen told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn't allowed to get a 6. Again, she had me ride the first fence off a short, turning approach and drive him up to it. As long as I did everything she said it worked! I had to keep my leg on down the line, but the 5 flowed well. We did have a couple times where I had to circle after the first fence because we either weren't forward enough or over bent. I'm glad that I was able to see when we had problems and could fix them. Who knew doing what your trainer said would work so well?!
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