first grade: a jumping lesson

It's no secret that I had a lot of nerves going into last weekend's event at Loch Moy.

Some nerves were due to very specific (and imo, reasonable) concerns, like would Charlie cope well with the atmosphere of an event with 275+ entries? Others were more amorphous and vague, having little to do with the horse himself, and none at all with our chosen level.

<3 this canter always. also i kinda appreciate that this pic almost makes the horse look kinda stout haha

Charlie is not a scary horse, and there's nothing about an 18" fence that should realistically worry me, right? I mean, for fuck's sake, even *I*, on my own feet, can handily tackle an 18" fence and nobody's ever confused me as particularly coordinated or athletic haha. So why the nerves?

suddenly charlie is a pro at trot fences. who knew?

Idk, honestly. I think it's the same shit that ebbs and flows for lots of us and seemingly only gets worse with age. In my particular case, I think the nerves have been compounded by the negative downward spiral with Isabel, followed by a couple emotionally and physically painful riding accidents last summer as I tried to keep riding at the same level on new and unfamiliar horses.

And the more mistakes I made, the less I trusted myself. So now I'm kinda in this place where I'm not so sure I should be pushing certain boundaries without supervision. It's self-fulfilling too, bc even when I make myself go forth and Do The Thing, I'm not always fully committed so then I make more mistakes and then feel even less convinced that it was actually a good idea in the first place.

big guy will GO tho if i goose him haha

The problem here, tho, is that in the last couple weeks we missed a couple jump lessons. Trainer P had also encouraged me to keep the horse jumping in between lessons anyway, now that he's starting to figure it out. She said even if it's just bopping around over 5 jumps at the end of the ride, keep it up to keep him thinking about it.

somehow couldn't quite find a good distance to this jump, but big guy made it work anyway

So I dutifully set up little cross rails (and one night actually pulled on my big girl pants and put a vertical or two in the mix as well) and made myself school my horse over tiny fences. Replete with pulling to the fences, power steering failures (one of which resulted in another runout, fml), dismounting to reset all our knock downs repeatedly (damn this horse needs a jump crew tho!), but still forcing myself to be brave and actually canter a damn fence for the love of god....

locked and loaded!

None of these schools were actually totally disastrous... Probably not even close at all. But none of them left me glowing with pride either. And I couldn't make myself set the jumps up to the size I know we should be practicing over. And I wouldn't set up an oxer, even tho Charlie jumps those WAY better than he jumps cross rails or verticals.

Idk. It's like every time something went a even little bit wrong, I immediately felt like "See, this is why I shouldn't be doing this - I knew this was a bad idea!" Which is totally bogus, but the mind can be a very unkind thing sometimes.

we biffed this one a few times too bc turning right is hard. finally got it sorted tho

So when we finally made it in for our weekly jump lesson the day before Loch Moy, I told trainer P in no uncertain terms: "I need a confidence-building ride." And, bless her, she delivered.

We intentionally kept things very light (it was hot out ugh) but purposeful. She didn't mess around with the "tiny" stuff (bunny ears absolutely relative here bc our "big" is .... well, you know haha) and quickly got us figure-8ing around an outside line to warm up before going down the line and then putting a course (Charlie's first!) together.

The warm up jumps went well enough that I only half-jokingly proclaimed, "We're done!" after cantering our first fence (in the video lol).

unimpressed horse is becoming quite fun to ride!

For the 'course' itself, trainer P kept it vanilla plain: inside single, outside line, inside single, outside line. Charlie's first real course! Honestly I thought the oxers looked too big - but this is why I ride with trainers I trust. I'd NEVER set that oxer up for myself right now, but if trainer P says 'do it,' you better believe I'm doin it! Plus, Charlie can trot them in his sleep haha.

Anyway tho we kinda biffed the course the first time through bc I kicked for a leaper at the first oxer and we never quite recovered our balance through the next 5 fences (tho we did get an auto lead change haha, #winning?). In a sense, I was proud of myself for actually committing and making a decision that wasn't "zomg better pull more!" On the other hand tho, it totally threw Charlie off his rhythm. Oops. Useful lesson to learn, tho.

pony can be cute when he feels like it!

We went through again, tho, this time trotting into the first oxer. And Charlie landed in the most perfect, easy rhythmic (dare I say hunter-esque?) canter that he happily maintained all by himself while I kinda just sat up atop him drooling like an idiot.

We biffed the next line bc I still don't know how to turn this horse right (it's a struggle, yo), but then the rest of the course was perfect (including an easy-as-pie simple change!!) - esp when I allowed him to get the correct striding down the other outside without goosing him. And trainer P had us go back and fix the first line right away, which flowed equally well (even if the turn was still slightly suspect).

video here!!

I obviously still have a lot of work to do as a rider.... But the horse hardly seems to notice lol. He just keeps on truckin around. And rides like this do so much to help further dispel my nervous energy and give me the confidence I need to keep trusting the horse and committing to riding him forward.

Bc it's getting kinda obvious that Charlie is progressing in the jumping department a little faster than I am haha.... I gotta keep up with him! Have you ever felt that way with your horse? Like you were the one slowing down progress? Or have you ever felt like certain exercises were off-limits outside of lessons bc you were afraid of messing up?