jumping into the new year, again

So my new farm is kinda a funny place when compared to small quiet trail type barns like Isabel's barn. It's big, old, historic, with a lot of very serious riders there (tho of course still plenty of casual adults, weekend warriors, and kiddos with fuzzy ponies). It's the kind of place with a lot of "big fish," if you know what I mean. Including a few riders who work in the racing industry.

One of these folks recently asked me about Charlie - what he was like and whether he could be very difficult. Bc she does turnout at the barn and apparently Charlie busts some moves when he goes out in the mornings. That's.... news to me lol.

cavorting with known troublemakers.... that 3yo appy in the middle in particular is a bad influence, charles!

But like, honestly I really have no clue about Charlie in his natural environment. I've worked at so many barns for basically the entire span of my horse hobby, until Charlie. I never worked at either of the barns Charlie's lived at, and sometimes feel kind of sorry to miss out on that level of interaction and knowledge about how my horse carries on his daily life.

At the last h/j place, Charlie was on nighttime turnout all year round, so I actually only ever caught him from the field like.... mayyyybe five times. At this new barn he's on daytime turnout in the winter so I catch him anytime I ride during the day - like weekends or days off. And it's kinda cool! I get to see who he's hanging out with, and observe a little of how he behaves in the herd.

don't be fooled by his resigned expression - i swear he's excited!

Anyway, naturally I assured this barn worker that Charlie is, in fact, a very good boy. Sure, he's made the occasional move under saddle.... but 9 times out of 10 his most extreme instances of.... expressiveness are directly related to something buggin him.

Still tho... it's kinda hard to believe that this quiet, steady dude would be one of the raucous ones lol. Maybe she's got him confused for someone else. Or... ya know. Maybe Charlie's keepin secrets from us!

there's the excited face!!

Or maybe he's just learned a lot about himself in the past year, and about how his body can work in new and interesting ways lol. Almost exactly one year ago, Charlie had his third jumping lesson during which he cantered a fence for the first time ever.

It was a very exciting day! And the first time we really got true glimpses of what Charlie might possibly look like as a schooled jumping horse.

big horse jumps in sma arena!!

Of course, the video is of us jumping outside bc last winter was extremely mild. This winter.... not so much. We won't see temperatures above freezing for a while, and it'll take longer still for the ground to thaw and soften enough for jumping. So. To the 20x40m indoor we go!

wait, is that an arab?? or charlie being sassy about cantering lol??

Riding in this arena is tricky on its own - it's the same dimensions as a small dressage court. Then add jumps and standards, plus... ya know, six other horses and a couple people milling around. Maybe a dog or two for good measure. Bc why not, right?

sassy in the other direction too lol.... you gotta watch the video for the sound effects here - he let out the weariest groan after executing this simple change of lead lol

And yet.... Charlie honestly made pretty good work of it! The nice thing about riding in this ring is that I can ride him in his dressage snaffle without concern - it's not like there's any wide open spaces for him to really get rolling. Plus the walls kinda help force the question of balance, since it's really too narrow a space for him to careen around.

ha. charlie. i know it's a small jump but c'mon buddy!

And honestly it's crazy really, how different he is this year from last year. I think all of our practice with grids lately has helped Charlie in tuning up and knocking some rust off after our extended break from jumping... But still. He's just... easy. He just goes.

ignore my hands, just look at his cute face <3

The biggest struggle of this ride was first figuring out the distances in the diagonal lines, since they had been set for ponies earlier and trainer P couldn't really walk her distances normally since she was bundled up so thickly lol. So we basically sorta experimented a bit lol. Charlie didn't care - he compressed or extended as needed, more or less off his own eye.

wheee tight turns abound!

And I think he kinda forgot how to do lead changes over the rehab and recovery period, since he'd land on his right lead and hit the corner like "uhhh what the fuck do I do now???"

he jumped GREAT over this panel tho!! my head is almost above the mirrors

Mostly tho, he just... ya know. Jumped the jumps. Most of them were pretty small, which is kinda a bummer... but it's also kinda hard to set up anything really big in a 20x40m arena. The two that were set up on the outside rails for the full course were probably around 2'6ish, esp that oxer. Charlie liked that haha.

werk that bascule, baby!

And then we got another oxer down one of the diagonals (it was supposed to have been set for when we did our course but P forgot to adjust it, so we went back and did it by itself after).

he was happy to have something a little bigger to jump

For my part, literally the only thing I'm thinking about right now is pushing my hands forward (shortening reins as needed) and pushing my legs down. It's kinda a crap shoot at any given moment how successful I am in either or both of those things, but literally every single thing about jumping Charlie feels more comfortable and easy when my hands are forward.

My natural inclination is to want a looser rein with hands hanging straight down, no bend in my elbows. But that puts me in a position slightly behind the horse, and I can't see a spot for shit like that. More forward hands makes a big difference, tho I still need to get more bend in the elbows. One step at a time!

video of warm up and course work here

And anyway idk if Charlie's eye is really tuned up with all our grid work lately or what, but especially for the bigger jumps he was just spot on. Moved up really well to jump out of stride.

I expect it'll be tougher in bigger, more open spaces - he has a tendency to run past his distances a little bit. But still. Compared to where we were exactly one year ago.... it's crazy how much more polished he looks! (tho it's still kinda a far cry from two years ago, when I had one of my favorite hands-down jump lessons ever)

video of charlie's 3rd jump lesson here

He looks like an entirely different horse! Like, sure, knowing where he is now it's relatively easy to see that through the rough greenness of his early days... But damn. I'm SO GLAD he's figured out where his legs are and how to get over a jump instead of going through it lol.

I'm also grateful to have a better understanding of Charlie's dinosaur-in-tar-pit tendencies since then, considering what a huge issue it had become. Keen observers may notice that I ditched the spurs and picked a crop up again - probably will write more about that later.

i just love this guy <3 and his tail too <3 <3

I wish it wasn't so cold this winter, and that we weren't relegated to the tiny indoor for all of our serious riding.... But I'm also really grateful to have the indoor. And that they recently replaced all the lights with LEDs so it's a LOT brighter in there now.

It's not the easiest space in the world to work with but we do our best. And Charlie's really figuring out how to balance himself a lot better. Case in point: when coming back around for that final diagonal jump in the video, we had to do a little loop up the long side cantering on the right lead - but cutting in around that oxer on the rail. So a pretty steep little counter canter loop. And Charlie did it like the easiest thing in the world. Good boy!

also look at this awesome canvas print brita got me for christmas!!!! even the cats approve!! (after a close inspection, naturally)

So. Ya know. It's not quite the same thing as galloping across country or schooling giant fences or complicated courses.... but it's fun. And it's good practice. And Charlie feels good and happy to be back to working over fences again. So I'm satisfied.

And it's a HUGE difference from this time last year, which is pretty crazy to see in the videos. Do you ever like to go back and look at pictures or videos from a year ago to see just how much has changed? I know sometimes we end up in holding patterns with horses for one reason or another... but it's cool when we can actually see a difference.