Jumping and not being terrified the whole time

I've been very timidly stepping back into jumping with Lucie. Why? Because I'm timid. In my defense, her fitness was still needing work, and it made no sense to start jumping if I didn't feel great about her flatwork. At this point, she's trimmed up a touch (though I will always call her Tubby) and started working the right muscles.


We started over small stuff for quite a few rides, just x rails and super tiny verticals. I didn't measure anything, but I doubt we got higher than 18". She's kind of a weird jumper in that she doesn't put any effort into the approach, can't be bothered to pick up her feet consistently, and barely holds herself together with the getaway, but she pushes off with a considerable amount of power over every jump. If I were more physically fit with even an ounce of core strength, this wouldn't be an issue, but I am not physically fit and have only half an ounce of core strength.

Two pointing at the start of my rides has definitely helped. I have to mentally remind myself to pull my shoulders back and get down in my stirrups over each fence. Stopping promptly after fences has also kept her more together on the getaway, and she maintains a cute lil canter before coming to a gentle halt.

We had our first real jump school right before Thanksgiving, complete with an oxer and everything. Still kept the fences 2'0" and under. She popped over it all like a champ.


Then . . . I didn't ride for three weeks because of finals and an art exhibition!! Originally planned to take her to an off property schooling with my trainer and Satin, but I had no energy day of. Came back and did some more flat schooling before bumping the jumps a bit higher. Still hadn't measured anything at that point, but I have an idea of where 3'0" is based on the length of my legs, so I used that for reference. Again, she didn't hesitate over anything, just needed to pick her legs up and not knock rails that are this low (-_-).

We had one fence that she kept dive bombing after, something that I haven't had an issue with since the first jump school. It actually screwed her over at some point when she tripped and then bucked because why hold yourself accountable for your own poor decisions? She was fine afterwards, so we kept going around and finished on a good note over an oxer.


Since I haven't been measuring anything, I thought it would be worth it to get an idea of what we've been going over. Our last school had the fences around 2'3"-2'6", and I had no hesitations with that height. Hopefully we'll keep going steady at this height

Comments

  1. Glad you are getting back into jumping and enjoying it!

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  2. Beauty! You guys look great! Glad to see you getting back to jumping!

    ReplyDelete

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