hell or high water

The heat wave has continued, bleh, and this past weekend was particularly hot. Like, really nasty. But surprisingly we actually had a pretty big group for our weekly jump lesson at OF. Definitely not something to be missed, apparently!

uncharacteristically, i forgot my half pad when packing the trailer, so opted to use this Success Equestrian pad with built in extra cushioning

Charlie has been working really well and really hard for the last couple of weeks - really figuring some stuff out about his new life. So I was eager to see where he'd be for this lesson.

i love the look but unfortunately it still needs a half pad, sits too far down on him

Verdict? He was pretty good, but not great - but did have some stuff to teach me about what he needs for warm up and riding consistency. Meaning, I had kept our warm up very short and sweet due to the heat, but then ended up needing to continue schooling our flat work a little bit in between jump turns bc he wasn't really where I wanted him to be.

trotting like a whole new horse on his way to his first liverpool 

He was STRONG for this lesson. Having moments of softness and give on the flat (like I said, he's really figuring it out), but also moments of basically blowing right through me. Then it started drizzling and the wetness + his sweat slick neck meant I had a lot of trouble hanging on to my reins. Not a great feeling on a strong horse haha!

game faces engaged!

The lines were all measured at not really great distances for us too - everything seemed to be set at fairly open distances, at 4 and 5 strides. Ideally I'd love to work on schooling the add stride, but that's pretty tough to do with lots of long straight approaches and 4 stride lines.

visually interesting "skinny" jump - note the single very high cross rail?

We tried tho. Managed to figure out how to get the add for 6 down the outside line that only involved my life flashing before my eyes once when Charlie almost got to the add but decided to go long after all. But like, LONG. As in, rider basically sitting on the horse's ass, slipping reins all the way to the buckle as the notoriously careless horse stretches out to superman over an oxer.

Luckily, Charlie seemed to agree that this style of jumping wasn't actually super fun and went for the add down that line after that lol.

he has such a great tail <3

The rest of the lines tho.... not so much. Particularly the two diagonal lines - you can see in the video that I'm finally starting to be able to form and influence his canter in the spaces between jumps. Charlie's developing a half halt (finally!), aided in no small part by me finally learning to sit down more haha.

just in case you thought i only ever got left behind over fences, here's a shot of me jumping ahead too lol

But it still takes too long to make it happen, and we don't land in the same canter we jump from. Which you can totally tell in the related distances. We get the in jump ok on a canter that almost looks like it could compress to the add stride - but then we land a little messy and the horse stretches out down the line to do the step, which ends up a little long bc of how we jumped in.

i think he likes the jumps up a little bit!

Eventually, obviously a horse this size can't and shouldn't necessarily always be doing the add stride - he's got a really lovely comfortable ground covering stride and doesn't need to be packaged down into nothing. But for right now, his tendency is to get strong and a little excited and rushy about the jumps - while kinda blowing through me as he goes.

i was quite pleased with how we reached some of the jumps

And as in all things with horse training, we spend the most time focusing on the things that are most challenging to the horse. This horse struggles in compressing his body and stride, in holding himself up while pushing from behind. So.... that's basically what we work on.

wheeee but not all of them lol

It's getting better all the time tho. Like, even tho Charlie was kinda strong in this lesson and kinda wanting to run through the bridle, there was still a LOT to be happy about. He made a lot of good choices, had a lot of really nice jumps, and felt pretty rideable through the ends of the arena (as opposed to careening off like a rocket ship).

jumping cute with a little extra gusto lol

Plus he was unfazed by the height of any of the jumps (some of which were about 2'9) or styles of jump - including his first liverpool, and a funny end jump with a barrel and a large cross rail coming across half of it to make it a skinny.

turbo tail!!

He was basically game to tackle anything, and I mostly felt pretty darn good about our communication and being 'in sync' with him (even tho I ended up ditching the gloves bc they seemed to be making things MORE slippery vs less).

this could have been such a much nicer photo if my leg was better behaved. sigh. 

All the same tho - I'm planning on adding a curb chain to the bit. That doesn't seem to be something commonly seen with this style elevator bit (tho apparently curb straps are less uncommon?) but it's been something I've been thinking about for a while. I actually bought a chain a while back but hadn't gotten around to adding it, esp after a couple jump rides of being pretty soft and consistent.

video of our last course here

fun game: try to count the # of times charlie gets a little long to the fence then has to add in a little extra "gas power" to make it over lol. toot toot!

We'll try it now, tho, I think. If it ends up being too much or sitting funny or messing with the action of the bit, I'll try a plain leather strap (instead of a chain). But somehow I think it'll be just right.

He's a big strong horse who loves to run and seems kinda excited about this whole jumping thing. I'm getting better about staying with him and softening when called for - but it's also hard to be soft and giving in my arms and hands when I don't trust the brakes. Ideally I'd like to be able to get in there with my half halt, then give back and soften - rather than constantly feeling like I need to take a hold.

yay team!!

We'll see tho. In the meantime, Charlie's just been pretty exciting. I love the feeling of a horse starting to 'get' it - starting to feel schooled. It's addicting haha, and every time I get even the briefest moment of that feeling from Charlie, it just makes me hungrier for more.

unimpressed charlie is unimpressed

And in an effort to continue helping him develop, I'll be making some fairly significant changes next week in our standard day to day life. Like anything else, this means some sacrifices and trade offs - but I'm optimistic that it'll be a really good decision for the horse. Fingers crossed!