Still Jumping

Well well well, who has two thumbs and has been able to squeeze in two jump lessons in the last month?  This girl.  New year, new me (can we still say “new year” even though it’s almost March?).  Despite my anxiety about jumping (more on that later), we’ve done it twice now and lived to tell the tale.

The first jump lesson at the end of January was really cute.  We were in the large outdoor arena and went over a cross rail back and forth, first at the trot and then at the canter.  Dalton prefers jumping big and taking the gap.  Trainer asked me to point him at the cross rail and let him figure out how to get the both of us over the fence.  My job was to not look down at the jump, keep my eyes / shoulders up, and give him a good release ahead of the jump.  We ended the lesson with a really nice, soft canter and steady, slow approach to the fence.

I’ll pause now to add that Trainer has put some really cool jumper buttons on him.  He powers up a few strides before a fence, which will be helpful for big jumps but totally unnecessary for the fences that we’re going over right now.  If I sit back and half halt up to the fence, he’ll hold to the base of the jump.  He has also been trained off vocal cues.  If you “ho” him, he will back off, which has come in handy when he’s hyper at the canter.

No lesson media but there's the handsome boy himself

The second jump lesson last week was ugly, to be honest.  We were in the small covered arena and trainer had set up two cross rails at diagonals and a pole on the ground in between.  At first, we trotted all of the poles and I had to work really hard at steering, which got harder when we cantered all the poles.  Then she moved the two jumps into cross rails.  We started off tracking left, since that’s both Dalton and my stronger side.  The first two in the sequence were nice.  I didn’t look down at the jump and he didn’t rush it.  Steering was still difficult since the arena is smaller, the turn into the pole came up pretty quickly, and his canter stride is huge.  The second jump (third obstacle) in the sequence is where it got really hard.  Ideally during the pole, I had to sit down, collect, and steer him on a sharp turn to the second cross rail.  The first time, he didn’t notice / remember the fence until we were almost right on top of it.  We were already wide and for a split second, I thought he was going to jump the standard.  At the last minute, he swerved around the jump and then I thought I was going to fall off.  I didn’t, we recovered, and tried again.  We were still curving out wide to the fence from the momentum from the pole, but I finally got him pointed to the jump and then he would power up to the fence and jump it huge.  We landed and got the lead change (which I did not ask for and we have not started working with him on).  I was happy we got over it but Trainer told me I need to sit and hold him to the fence so he doesn’t get used to rushing fences or taking the gap all over the place, particularly with fences that are so small.

Key takeaways from the lesson: 

• I need to half halt basically to my waist in order for him to get listen to the outside rein when fences are involved
• When he is tired/lazy, Dalton will get really heavy in front and LEAN on the bit, and then I need to crank him back up again.  I’m still jumping him in the rubber pelham with the curb chain and usually, the chain isn’t even tightened so I’m keeping away from his face.  But when he decides to blow through the fences, he will run through the curb chain
• Heels DOWN over the fence.  I’ve been good about keeping my eyes up and giving him the release but I still feel like I’m getting popped out of the tack.  I’m hoping if I add this third part, I’ll keep my seat better
• Focus on the flat, not the fences.  He can get over much bigger fences but needs help figuring nice, sane ways to get to it

The fun part about all of this (besides not dying) is that he’s a really good egg who loves to jump.  He zeroes in on the fences and you can tell that he really enjoys it.  As with any green horse, it’s different from riding a horse who already knows the ropes and I have a lot of progress I need to make on my end as well.  Controlled chaos is the theme of the year!