Redemption

I have a lot to catch up on, but first and foremost, we had some serious redemption at our show this past weekend.

Kisses for the best pony

Not only was Peebs back to his normal, happy self, we cantered our first full course at a show and didn't die!!  In fact we did pretty damn well. I honestly don't know why I was scared to do it; cantering him in the big show ring is so much easier than trotting around. For the most part we were able to find a nice rhythm and just lope along.  I found most of my distances, we made the strides easy (actually too easy, homeboy can have a 13ft stride, who knew?!).  I'll put a full show recap up later.

Of course getting here from our last show took some work.  The week after our last show Peebs felt really disconnected and when I lunged him to take a look, it was like his front end and hind end were two different horses. We also had another major spooking incident walking down the road involving a mail truck.  So I called the chiro and poor pony was way out.  When she first started working on him she said his hips were out and his neck was a bit wonky.  But once she started on his neck he was much worse than she thought.  He's very stoic and we think his way of saying he was out was spooking and being super amped. And a couple days after she worked on him, the tension I'd been feeling for the past couple weeks was gone and he stopped spooking at things. At the show we had multiple encounters with the water trucks and tractors and he never once cared about them.  Even when they got close enough that we got sprayed all he did was stick his head in the air and pin his ears.

The week before the show we had our best lesson to date. Trainer put the jumps up a hole and set the lines on an 11ft stride.  Our arena is small and it's hard to set on a 12' stride so we normally do a 10' or 11'.  Since we've mostly been doing baby stuff I tend to set on a 10'. The theme for the lesson was to ride him forward, in prep for  the bigger strides and lines at the show. And what do you know, once I committed to it, it was easy.  Once I'm comfortable with having a bit more pace and bigger stride, Peebs is super easy to find distances on. He's not a super fancy warmblood hunter, but he can have a nice pace and rhythm that makes doing the hunters fun. Now, all we need is a flying change and we'll be set!!

Jump for Joy

I set up a few small fences today; a couple cross-rails and the cavalettis.  After a light warm up where we worked on transitions and getting Buddy to really move off my leg, we started trotting the fences.  Since we haven't been jumping regularly, Buddy was pretty forward (for him) at first.  He likes to drag me down to the fence when he's excited, so I tried to stay still and tall with  my body and keep a steady rhythm.  After about 4 or 5 trot fences, he got tired and was quieter and not rushing to the fence.

We started cantering single fences, working on having a nice forward rhythm, bending in the corners, and having nice lines to the jump.  I tend to get nervous when I can't "see" a distance, and will lock my elbows and take my leg off my horse.  Buddy is good at ignoring me and finding his own way to the fence.  Today, I tried to stay relaxed and let the jump come to me. 

On the landing side of the jumps, we worked on staying straight and using our space in the corners.  Buddy likes to dive on his front end and fall into the turn.  He was good today, and we were able to work on our lead changes.  We would put a few fences together, then I'd give him a walk break.  Since he's out of shape jumping wise, I didn't do too much.  For not jumping consistently since September, I was happy at how good he was today and that we haven't lost much of what we had been working on.