Saturday might have been my last lesson of the year. Before it was over, I knew it was either going to be a good one in which I stayed on my horse, or a bad one. There are times you love jumping but you’re not in love with it and lately it seemed I just loved it. Future (like me) seems to want food all the time during the winter and wasn’t happy with the scraps of hay I tossed in his stall. (I had to leave him be for a few minutes while helping catch the barn’s German Sheppard puppy that had run off and was being playful with a few horses that weren’t as friendly as he was. A note to those catching a puppy; he’ll finally submit if you don’t make it too much of a game.) So while I was doing up the girth, he was being friendly with the half-chaps I was wearing and gave them a tentative bite. I don’t know what that was supposed to mean: I’m hungry, or Don’t do up the girth, or Are these edible?
We got our tack in order and headed out to the arena but he wouldn’t enter. My coach came to the door and calmly explained that the propane heater usually scared the horses until they were used to it. He freaked out before getting in then freaked out again as he ran past it. I would like you to know I am aware how lucky I am that he calms down quickly. A girl on the lesson just finishing with her own horse told me how bad he had been during their lesson. She had stayed on and I told her that some days that’s the biggest accomplishment. So her eight year old had gone crazy with the heater and I was supposed to be productive on the back of my four year old? On our first walk around the arena he backed up when he was 20 yards from the heater and turned around. And it is here I will eat my words of two lessons ago; I would be happy to finish the year without another fall.
We took it real easy on the flat, following other horses and trying to get him softer during the turn. I had my legs almost clamped on him and every two minutes I had to remind myself not to squeeze on my knees. Things were looking better and we even managed to push into three of the four corners. The canter didn’t go so badly either. In this paragraph, I’m going to eat my words of several lessons ago in which I was so angry at my coach for ironing in one corner of the arena. If I hadn’t had an experience like that, I wouldn’t have been able to keep calm during this lesson and just slowly keep working him out, pushing him as far as I could without fighting him.
The first jump went well. The second line we did had us start in the scary corner and go over a skinny/gate combination. I feel that a more aggressive rider could have put him over them; we got two runouts. He went over them and the rest of the lesson defaulted to an easy line of two jumps. Twice over them was no problem. I put more impulsion in us the second time, starting from a canter. Over the 2’6″ jumps.
Then my coach decided to have some fun and raised the jumps to 3′. I put him in a canter and we sailed over. Then up to about 3’2″. This was our coach’s Christmas present to those of us who could do them. I’m back in love with jumping. And in case I didn’t make it clear, it was a good lesson. Merry Christmas!
