Saturday Lesson, First Jumps of 2017

I already mentioned 2017 has started a bit slow for me, and only just this past Saturday did I get around to jumping Eli. Since I had been a bit sick and Eli hadn’t been ridden as consistently as usual we decided to keep it simple and just trot in and canter out of a 4 stride line (so 5 strides if trotting in). The first 3 or 4 times through, Eli plaaaayyyyyed through the line and I had to even add a sixth step to get him refocused on the second jump. As I totally expected, that’s just the horse he is.

But once he got his brain in gear and I reasonably had my riding sorted, we got through the line with some really nice jumping efforts on his part. It seemed like a good start to build on.

Thankfully, some newly returned barn alums were around to catch me on video, so thank you JenJen for that! I can see from the video I need to lift my chest a good bit, among other things. There’s following a jump, and then there’s laying on the neck.

100114.3 from patentlybay on Vimeo.

I had hoped to jump again on Monday, but it rained so I wound up taking him on a walk in the fields with just a little bit of (squishy) trotting. He felt quite boisterous as there is no turnout in mud, and it’s going to rain more. I think the week will be a bunch of grooming and hand-walking and grazing, and maybe a roll or two in the round pen if I can get enough light out there after work.