jumping lessons one month later

It probably wasn't super obvious, but yesterday's summary of our recent dressage lesson was actually a full week old. That's the way of things around blogs tho, I guess. We're always at least a day or two behind around here, if not a little more!

"i am fancy dressage horse, yes?" - charlie

In the case of Le King of Dings over here, that means he's often coming sound again right around the time I post about his latest lameness. Which was again the case this time around. His awful, terrible, no good bruise resolved itself enough for him to consider himself no longer crippled by Sunday. At which point he got a nice long hack (as mentioned yesterday).

"yes, i suppose i am."

Then Monday he got a reasonably structured flat ride - for which naturally I dressed him up like the fanciest of fancy dressage horses. White boots, fleecy bells, the whole nine yards. Bc obvi if he came up lame at least maybe ppl would be distracted by his cute outfit? Maybe??? lol....

He was sound tho. And quite good. Well. Let me temper that a little bit: he was sluggish and decidedly behind my leg for at least the first half of the ride. But he offered exactly zero dinosaur moments. And actually got right on board with my efforts to put him in front of my leg. Specifically: halt-trot transitions. Actually, he was so on board that he did a shockingly nice walk-canter transition despite me only looking for trot. Goooood boy!

he's also a fancy jumping blur too!

So I was optimistic going into a hastily scheduled make-up evening jump lesson. Which, if you're keeping track, is our first real lesson over fences in exactly one month. The last one being that hybrid stadium / xc lesson back in August. Then we were sidelined by that abscess for a little while.... tho at least we got one quick supervised school over fences in the meantime.

his middle name is "unimpressed"

Also in the meantime, Charlie and I had a few opportunities to go out and jump our own selves around - such as during that baller paper chase at Tranquility, and obviously during our recent competition at Fair Hill.

thank god for that star to at least sorta make sense of the blur!

And Charlie's just been jumping great. So well. I'm so excited for him. But simultaneously honestly I'm a bit caught up in the disappointment of wondering where he could be if we hadn't had such a crappy 6-8 week run of things. Between my travel, his aggravated splint, more travel, that abscess, then the recent fat leg... We've just missed a lot of time.

"we're gonna need a bigger fence!"

I know it sounds like a broken record every time I dwell on that.... But it's what's on my mind so it's what I write about. Like, included in that lost time are the opportunities to school new and interesting challenges, or continuing to expand Charlie's horizons with adding more height.

When you're constantly just trying to "get back into it" tho, it doesn't make sense to always be pushing boundaries.

love how clever he's getting to the base!

So this lesson was nothing amazing or super ground breaking. Charlie was good, I was ok. We had mostly a good rhythm and still some green mistakes. I'm REALLY excited tho about how adjustable the horse is getting - in learning a half halt, but also in his steering.

he's a pro at bending lines now too <3 i didn't even know he popped a change in this line til i watched the video lol

We schooled around some lines and bending lines. A couple interestingly styled fences (tho we left out the skinny shark's tooth bc of needing to share daylight among lesson mates) and more technical turns. But yet I wished it could have been more. And honestly wished each fence was raised another hole or two. That they could have been 2'6 and up instead of 2'6 and below.

disappointed we didn't try the shark's tooth, not enough daylight :( soon!!

Which seems crazy haha considering my crippling nerves and anxiety just three months ago. But if I've learned anything, it's that confidence and anxiety are cyclical beasts. And I will take whatever good positive feeling comes my way, no questions asked, thankyouverymuch.

(imo, negative gnawing feelings deserve full dissection and analysis. i like to know those issues inside and out! the happy feel-goods tho?? no need to look that gift horse in the mouth!)

fan jumps are old hat now tho!

I hope that doesn't sound whiny lol. We aren't really in any rush to get any where, and we aren't exactly stagnating or anything -- obviously there's still a lot of work to do in improving my riding and getting Charlie more schooled, ever more trained.

dusky evening video here!

Maybe I'm just feeling greedy tho lol. I just want to get beyond this feeling of "getting back into the groove." It's cool tho. It's all ahead of us.

Our upcoming calendar has a lot to be excited about, and there are a few other ideas bumping around in my head for new ways to enjoy this wonderful horse of mine. We'll see how it goes! And in the meantime.... yea, we'll just be here, working on getting back into that groove. Forever and always lol.

How about you - have you ever had to deal with little nagging setback after setback, or feeling like you have so many goals allllmost within reach, but not quite? Or maybe you're more patient than me haha -- or you're better about not making too many concrete goals with your horses bc horses have such a knack for irreverence when it comes to our plans??