Jump!

Denny keeps adding to his list. Clearly he thinks motivation is in short supply. Rather than trying to do all of the remainder (he was at 62 at last count), I'm just going to mention a couple more. We'll call this thirty goals analyzed.

24. Become involved as a volunteer at a show. I've helped at shows, but never as a volunteer. This needs to be rectified this summer. It's just a matter of freeing up a weekend. And a lot of Advil. I've helped out in the secretary's office before, and there's nothing quite like disgruntled horse people.

25. Learn how to work a horse in long lines. You know, I think this ties in to the project to teach Fiona how to drive. I'll have to start researching what I'll need to get for this project.

27. Scribe for a dressage judge. Hmm. I never thought I qualified for this, but maybe I do. My penmanship is certainly bad enough. Am I the only one that spends quite a bit of time staring at tests and thinking my doctor wrote out my notes? I love dressage tests for the feedback I get, I want to go to a dressage show this spring, but sometimes I feel like I need to turn them upside down to read them.

Aside from setting up even more goals for myself, I did actually go and ride. Fiona reacted to her spring vaccinations and was under the weather Tuesday, so it's been bareback and a hackamore for a couple days. Today was our first jumping lesson in awhile. I was, understandably, a little uncertain going in.



We actually had a good lesson and I felt like we've made progress. We're still trotting in, but we've started to canter out over fences. Today it was all two foot verticals, which is a step up from the 18" cross rails we were on. No one was given heart attacks or frightened by our performance, and even though she had to be reminded on her brakes toward the end, over all she was very good. The canter? Honestly, there is no comparison to her canter from before. She's capable of carrying herself very lightly. I have a lot of hope for her in the future, she's got so many of the pieces.

I'm snapping my body too quickly when I jump, it's something I need to work on. A lot. This young lady does not suffer fools, pretty much at all. If I'm balanced and relaxed, so is she. If I get tight or forget to breathe, so does she. But she's a lot bigger than I am, so it's a much bigger deal. Most of the lesson she was pretty chill, but when I stressed about a bending line, she would blow through my hands like they weren't even there. But she seems to go very well in her new bit. There's no pain reaction, but she doesn't lean on it like the mullen mouth snaffle. We'll go in this for a bit longer and see what we've got. I think we'll keep the Mare Magic supplement, too. She's in full blown heat today, and we were still able to pull off a good lesson. She just seems less distracted, but she acted like she had cramps today. Poor thing, I can totally sympathize. Exercise during cramps seems to help us both, and she was in good spirits after her lesson. Her battery powered de-shedder shipped today, I can't wait to see her reaction to that.