Jumping!!

I love my pony. So much. She's freaking amazing. Word of warning, there are going to be lots of pictures in this post because I love my pony. Beware.

Big smile because I love my pony!

I hopped on Rush about 30 minutes before the lesson was scheduled to start. I've decided to start riding her in lessons to get her acclimated to being ridden with other horses as well as the motions and sounds that come with jumping. For some reason jumping spooks her so I'm seeing if I can get her desensitized this way- she's much less spooky when I'm on her as opposed to when I'm on the ground. Anyways, I walked her around on a loose rein until the lesson started, even taking a few loops around the barn. This worked really well to get her loose and calm and relaxed.

Little ballerina

She moved out really well today, with minimal bracing and rushing. I love days like this because she allows me to actually use my leg on her, both using calves for support and using my leg to get her straighter. Usually when I attempt to straighten her out she just gets fast, which is both frustrating and unhelpful, so I'd take this over that any day!

This was a moment that happened quite a bit during the lesson, however. For some reason when she's not hyper and focusing on going fast, she ducks and weaves from contact and is much less steady in it. Have to figure out the reasoning behind this.

What you see here is me apparently not being able to balance. For some reason on super smooth horses it takes me a long time before I can actually balance properly. This happened on Willie too when I first started riding him- it's like I'm incapable of getting my butt out of the saddle, and when I do manage it my upper body just wants to sink until it's parallel with the neck. I'm going to try shortening my stirrups and see if that helps, but if it's the same thing that happened with Willie, it just takes some time to get used to it.

 

Cantering.. ugh. Still kind of a rough area for us. To the right she's slow and maintainable, but very over bent. She bulges out with her shoulder and shoves her head and hind into the center, but when I try to straighten her out she gets worried and fast. To the left she's just ridiculous.. fast, unresponsive and frustrated. Stupid racehorses to the left.

Smile!

 

Soo.. jumping! We did some. It was awesome. She's definitely not really balanced enough to be actively trained in jumping yet, but she's such a doll. We started with a bunch of poles and gradually got bigger to a cross pole; ironically, as the jump got bigger she got less and less worried about it. She obviously has some worries about going up to the jumps and wiggles a bit, but ultimately she goes over them once I close my leg on her so I am all smiles and happiness right now.

After all that hard work she got a bath and blinded everyone in the vicinity.

Breakthroughs and Feet Woes

Although I've been crippled for the past week in bed, due to severe migraines and headaches, I was able to shuffle off to the barn today for two hours to get Rush out. As of this point in time I'm in charge of riding Rush and Status constantly, and hacking Willie whenever I have time. Brie was taken over by another girl who rides with me and is doing pretty well, and Webbie was taken over temporarily by my friend who needed a horse to take to IEL. However, Status has progressed to the point where I've deemed him safe enough for my friend to lease him again, so she's starting that back up in a day or two at the beginning of November. That will free up more time for me, so hopefully I can get back to focusing on Rush as much as I need to as well as doing catch rides and hopping on anyone who needs schooling.

Addressing the breakthrough part of this post- last week, before headache of death attacked, I finally figured out that instead of attempting to tire Rush out before getting on her, I should just ride her slow. Before I would lunge her until she seemed relatively quiet, then I would ride and struggle with her to keep everything at a decently slow pace. Last Friday I decided to try something new- riding her at a slow pace, and letting her know that I expected her to be SLOW when I was on her- and lo and behold it worked! The next time I got on her (Sunday, I think, since I was too busy Saturday) she was a perfect angel. Walked around on a loose rein to warm up without jigging. Trotted with contact without bracing. Cantered without accelerating on the downhill. It was really an eye opener and I have really high hopes for her progress in the next few weeks.

But.. feet woes. For some reason BO is on a new binge of doing the feet every 8 weeks, instead of 6 (I say for some reason, but who am I kidding, it's because she's cheap). And.. Rush's feet really need to be done. They've gone downhill really fast and it's kinda scary, so I really hope they get done this week sometime or else I need to sit down and have a talk with BO, which I really don't want to do.