The Fun Stuff

 Last Friday I was happy to see a few fences set up in ring for my lesson. My brain was still fried from our dressage heavy lessons and jumping felt so much easier. Our warm-up was pretty short and sweet, focusing on getting Cinder forward with minimal effort on my part. We did some shortening and lengthening of her stride to check adjustability before we started to jump. 

Cin's nickname in the barn is Hotdog, so when I saw the Mane Jane hotdog spur straps, I had to get them. Now I'm on the hunt for a hotdog charm to clip into her braids. 

We started over fences with a cross rail on a diagonal going back and forth, stopping on a straight line. We then moved on to two brush boxes that were set up on the center line with no standards. I was slightly worried because Cin can sometimes get wiggly to jumps without standards and has run out before, but she was totally fine with these. 

There were two outside verticals set and we did those in a big circle. A wanted me to make the circle big enough that it wasn't a jumper turn to them, but not so big that I was cantering in space forever. The first time through them Cin was a bit behind my leg and I had to move her up a bit to both. They weren't bad jumps, but not super great ones either. During our second pass I thought I had her in front of my leg, but when I went to steady to both fences she broke to the trot. But third time was the charm. We did a circle before starting and I made sure to rev her up a bit and both fences flowed really well. We quit on that good note. 

The barn hosted a Muddy Princess mud run over the weekend and they parked in Cin's pasture and she was concerned about it

For my lesson on Monday, A asked if I wanted to jump or flat. The same few fences were set up, along with a mini jump chute. To both of our surprise, I said flat. The jump configuration was a little boring and why waste time and effort on them again. In the trot work we did some small circles, focusing on bringing the outside shoulder around and getting Cinder to really sit on her butt. A said she wanted to play around with baby walk pirouettes, something Cin's never done. It took me a few tries to understand how much I had to whoa with my hand, but go with my leg. 

After a few attempts each way, as I was coming out of a pirouette, A told me to canter and both Cinder and I were like WTF? I asked and she kinda scrambled into it. Poor Cin felt overwhelmed but she stayed with me and kept trying. A would have us canter a few circles, back to the walk, walk pirouette a time or two, then back to canter out of the pirouette. Our attempts were very rough and much more huntery than real dressagey, but I was proud of both of us for toughing it out.  Cinder said it was very hard work and that she was very tired. I told A that it was really fun and that I like this type of dressage.