Up & Up

Once it was settled that Fuego needed a little breaky break, I had another lesson on Destello. He was in a quick beginner lesson before I got on him, so our warm-up was quick. Trainer T had the same general comments as last time: our flatwork is good, we're right there with each other, he's naturally behind the leg and we can continue to work on that. When I first got on him, I decided to go for a stretchy walk and trot to start with. Trainer T had me keep the long rein through the canter and as we were jumping to encourage him to move forward.

One of the other trainers set up a gymnastic in the middle of the arena which used half of the fences we have available. It was also loooonngg. It was three single fences with one stride in between then, like, six strides to a final oxer. And that's six slow Destello strides. One time, we did it in five strides. I also did it this past week on Fuego in three strides . . . to each their own.

We started with it as poles on the ground and worked on trying to hold a lead going through. This was actually very fun, and I'd like to keep working on it. One of the things I have always struggled with when jumping is all the small things you have to think about. It started with the simple heels down, shoulders back, look up, get out of your saddle at the right time, and stay out of it for the right amount of time. Those are more second nature now, but looking to my next fence, preparing for my next fence, encouraging a lead, and other things are still active thoughts. It was hard to remember when the fences went up, but definitely something to work on.

We went through it twice on its own then took a walk break while Trainer T put some of the fences up. She remarked, "I want to see you jump big today." The course was the gymnastic followed by a set of three low bounces, bending line to an oxer with the filler that wants to kill me . . .

This nonsense, but as a 2'-6" oxer

. . . then finish over the wishing well on a long approach. For some reason, the hardest part for me was bending from the bounces to the green oxer. I kept riding way too deep, which seems to be a constant for me over this particular filler. Idk why. Everything else rode fine. Once I got enough forward momentum, the wishing well became easy peasy. The gymnastic was shockingly clean every time through, which is unusual for me. When we finished, the last two fences of the one stride were set around 2'-6", and the final oxer was "at least 2'-9", possibly a soft 3'-0"." I did ask how high it was as Trainer T was putting it up. She said "Nunya."

It rode like I've been doing this my whole life.

We also went to go see another grand prix afterwards. Funny enough, the exact same set up was part of the course for the night, right down to the number of strides on the final oxer. The one strides knocked several people out of the jump off. Perhaps these professionals could take a tip or two from me ;)