Two weeks, two feets

Friday marked three semesters completed on the eq team. For our last lesson of this semester, I was put on Boomer, which was shocking to say the least. Honestly, Carlos was a bit of a shocker too, considering he's quite forward, and I hadn't ridden in a while. I'm planning on being in a regular lesson schedule over winter break with Miss El, and ideally that'll start next week. We'll see.

Maybe K will let me ride Artec

Boomer was his usual self, always a doll to hack. Like Carlos, he get's a bit anxious when you pick up the reins, so we worked on that a bit. He had good transitions and responded well when I went to pick him up in his canter work. That proved to be useful once we got into the jumping portion of the lesson.

We started with the small filler that we usually do. There was only one fence in the arena located on the quarter line somewhere between B and P. We started by trotting the long approach twice, then we cantered. Boom Boom was awesome to trot, which he usually isn't, so I was quite pleased with that. He was super duper to canter, too.

#judgingyou

After we went on the long approach and the short approach twice, Coach put it up to - DUN DUN DUN - 2'. Guess who was the only one in the arena about to piss their pants??? Anyways, I had my dramatic moment going over it the first time where I braced afterwards and had a bout of heavy breathing. The fence itself: perfect. Boomer was a-m-a-z-i-n-g every time we went over it, and we probably did the fence, like, four times. I utilized the long approach to our advantage and tried a couple different stride lengths. We nailed it at both heights all but one time where I was asking for a longer stride, but it led to a distance that was a touch too long, so we were ugly on the back side. I've never commit so hard to a distance, though.

Looking for his reward

So, yeah, great way to end the semester. If break and the spring go well, I'll feel a lot more confident about next show season. I'm aware that I can go around a course in the show ring confidently, but I need consistency right now.

And yes, I still used the frilly saddle pad because it's magical, and I will get my own.