Surprise jumping lesson

I headed to the barn on Saturday like usual, but this week I had some other things I needed to do so I couldn't stay overnight.  I figured that was fine, we would flat and next week I would school the day before the show and it would all be good.

Marcy had other ideas.  I headed up to the barn to be met by her halfway in the golfcart, where she told me to turn around and get the right gear on.  Violet thought it was the shortest (best) ride ever.  Not so much pony girl.

Because I have no media and she's cute as hell.

I got back up to the ring, which was in the process of being groomed.  There was a big group of paints that were also on their way, but I got there first, and Marcy came in the other entrance to set fences. The tractor left and I entered after trotting around outside the ring a bit.  We trotted and then cantered, and then started cantering a pole.  Then we changed that up to pole, turn to another pole.  Then we added a cross rail in the middle.  This was not a circle of death exercise, it was simply a pole, like 9 strides to a crossrail, another 9 strides to a pole, going back and forth, left lead, right lead, etc.

I have no idea what happened.  It was hot.  Like 90+ hot.  And still.  And I sounded like a freight train.  And the group on the paints actually came into the ring with me like they were going to use it at the same time. And I just could not do the exercise.  I could not canter those damned poles to save my life.  It's like the brain said "nope, too much".  We were splitting legs over poles left and right.  Always got over the cross rail, though.  When the brains finally decided to let me do it right a couple of times, we moved on.

We then worked down the 5 stride line, back and forth, first as both verticals, and then both oxers.  I did pretty good at getting the forward stride.  We do better when they are bigger, I think.  I still need to work on looking UP over the fence.  Not just to the next fence, but UP.  My chest (not something most riders have to deal with) gets forward and puts the pony onto her forehand, which many times causes that chip in a line. Damned boobs.

I mentioned to Marcy that I thought of Reed Kessler when she said that, and she said no, go look at pics of Kent Farrington, cause he does it best.  And of course, trainer's always right.

Like here.

And here

And he chews his lips like I do.

Then we did the line right turn rollback to a fence.  It is so nice.  I can actually simply pick up my inside hand and look to the next fence and she just goes there.  After we did that a few times, we did the line the other direction to a left rollback to a one stride.

Yep, the one stride.  The old "in-and-out".  I've done them a couple of times in the past.  But it always took me several tries to get her forward and her stride long enough to actually get the one stride.  Or the two stride, for that matter.  And we haven't done anything closer than 4 strides in like a year and a half.  At least I haven't.

So you can imagine the whoop that came out of my mouth after we handled that bad boy on the first and only try!

And with that we were done.  I washed her off, cleaned my tack, and headed home.

We wee going to go to a baseball game, but it was too hot, so we went to the beach for a walk instead.  Sunday I had planned to do nothing, but my brother had the day off, so we worked in the garden and with the plants outside, and then I went and played softball.

Oh, and we may have gotten a new member of the family. 

Hi Luke!