Finally a Jump School!

My schedule was a little unusual over the weekend, such that I knew I wouldn’t be at the barn Saturday morning. So I checked in with my trainer about schooling on Friday instead and that worked out great.

Considering Eli had done very little work throughout September, we kept things simple. Organization was the day’s theme. We trotted over a few crossrails and then worked on a small course of singles, which included trotting over the crossrails.

Eli was very responsive, slightly sassy, but definitely weak behind so I need to work on building that back up for him. The weakness behind really nailed us a few times, but otherwise I was so happy to actually be jumping my horse.

I muffed a distance to a vertical at one point, but my trainer worked us through the situation, preparing Eli for a better distance. Funny how thinking ahead works really, really well.

We never did catch the last vertical off a long approach in a canter step — this is where the lack of impulsion through the hind end got us. But I decided not to rush Eli, and my trainer agreed to cut him some slack. We were getting the right attitude from him, which is saying a lot.

Overall though, I am pleased with how much he retained from our previous rides with more contact. I thought he’d be playing a lot more but he was pretty business-like. It’s a start, at any rate. Hopefully we’ll get a break in the rain and I can build up Eli’s strength through his topline and hind end again.

Schooling with Holly 9/28/18 from patentlybay on Vimeo.

I am glad I finally got some media from during a lesson — it shows a lot of what we can work on this week, like how much I need to sit up and stop leaning. If it doesn’t rain much. Tomorrow: putting together a lesson outfit.