Up and Down

Besides the barn drama going down (barn meeting this afternoon should be interesting!), my rides over the past couple weeks have either been great or drama central.

Two weeks ago we had a great lesson with TS, our chiro and dressage instructor. We worked and the same thing my trainer has us working on, getting him rounder, deeper, and in front of my leg, as well as slowing the transitions. TS kept telling me to firm my fists to pulse the bit in his mouth and I liked how it worked. Something about that phrase makes more sense to me than "keep your fingers closed". TS also tightened my curb chain a few links more than I normally do, and told me to be more assertive with my curb rein. 

Pics from a trainer ride a couple weeks ago

The next day we had a jumping lesson that was not nearly as good. I think a large part of it was that we were both tired from the day before, and pushing each other's buttons a bit. We warmed up trotting fences ok but once trainer said to canter I got nervous and picked at Peebs who got pissed and fast. We had a couple awful canter fences before going back to flat work to chill both of us out. We tried trotting fences again and while it was ok, we were both pretty tense. 

Last week our lesson was much better, but we stuck to trotting the single fences, and just cantering down the line. For some reason trotting in and cantering out of a line is fine, but catering single fences is terrifying. We managed to put a trot course together and I was super happy with how good we both were. 

Monday I pulled on my big girl breeches and not only jumped on my own, but cantered single fences! The first few were awful; I pulled, he got fast, we got shitty distances. We had a couple little arguments but I survived, and we worked through it. We ended by cantering the vertical above off a long approach and both times it felt nice.

Pulled on my big girl breeches and cantered a single fence, on a long approach, and didn't die #maybethereshopeformeyet #goodboypeebers

A video posted by Molly Basney (@mollybasney) on Sep 19, 2016 at 5:10pm PDT

 I figure for now we're going to have crappy, ugly distances and that's ok and we'll survive. Once I get the fear out of the way, and actually ride my horse, things are so much better.