building a bigger flea jar

Recognize the quote?

B and I took the horses over to FV earlier this week to school. Hauling out so often is exhausting and it sucks paying an arena fee every ride... but there are benefits too. For instance, we got to the barn around 3:00, and were pulling out of the driveway with a packed trailer and two groomed horses at 3:35. And all done without feeling hurried (it helped that the trailer was already hooked up). 

Me thinks this bodes well for show season! 

And naturally the newest trial saddle had to come along for the ride too :)

There were lessons going on at FV when we got there - which kind of surprised us, but the trainer was cool with us riding around. She had also moved all the jumps to set up new and twisty courses. This was not the standard side-diagonal-side we have come to expect, no no. There were all sorts of crazy things going on. And with the exception of an X and two 2'-ish fences, everything was set between 2'3"-2'9".

The above four fences kind of zig-zagged through the center - with the red brick wall fence serving as the in jump to a three-stride line. The purple fence in the foreground was 2' and served as a warm up fence.

In any case, my attention was focused on the saddle and our flat work. Isabel did not disappoint (and neither did the saddle, for that matter). It kind of amazes me the improvement in our contact just in the last two-ish weeks. Like something has 'clicked.' 

Isabel was soft and responsive and not particularly fussy. I like it!!! And when we moved on to jumping, she stayed in this really lovely gear. It was almost like you could just put her onto a certain pace or rhythm, and she'd stay there until you asked for something different. 

I was feeling pretty unsure about the height of most of the jumps set up, so we just started over an X before moving on to the small brick wall below, and the purple jump a few pics back. Isabel felt fantastic tho - taking all the jumps in stride and on a light contact. 

Plus I figured out pretty quickly that this trial saddle is AWESOME - and much to my own surprise, I started going for the bigger jumps too. And it felt GREAT! I felt super secure in the saddle, even when Isabel got serious air over some of the 'lookier' fences.

There was one bobble at the yellow oxer below - we approached on the right lead from a 90-degree turn off the rail with either a forward 3 or balancing 4 strides to the fence (you can see the approach in the zig-zag pic above). The first time I didn't see a spot and Izzy stopped. Can't really blame her - tough approach to a big fence with zero piloting... But it was nbd, we just circled and jumped it twice before moving on. 

All in all, I was THRILLED with the ride. I'm not exactly sure what's different, but lately our rides have all been super positive. Feels good man, feels good :)