Up and Over!

Riding has been going well. We've both sort of put our nose to the grindstone and decided to wear some use into the saddle, that sums up my training motto lately. My goal is to put hours in.

We've had to change bits again, from happy mouth back to a french link. I met a lady getting out of horses who was selling off everything beyond reasonably priced, right about the time Whisper managed to bite that happy mouth a few times hard enough to crack and split the whole thing. I like my french link so I went ahead and picked up a thicker french link at the bargain sale of the century in this lady's tack room.

After working on the ground over poles and slightly elevated poles, Whisper's confidence came up. With her it is all about success. If I push her too much too soon she gets terrified of the whole thing and it all collapses. Last time we began jump training, and the last time I have tried to really jump her, I thought I was going slow, it just wasn't slow enough.

We jumped a pole braced slightly off the ground with me trotting beside her after riding one evening. If you think about it, the act of jumping is the hardest part. Once she gets the stride and the form, the jumping itself will flow through higher and higher set bars until we see where her proficiency is. That first folding to jump must be the hardest. So we did it together and she gained confidence by the fourth and fifth times.

That went well enough that next ride we did it under saddle. Ground poles first. Then a slightly elevated pole. Crossrails used to scare her a lot, straight bar seemed like a good choice.

No idea if she was going to freak, buck, bolt, I had to check my adrenaline levels a few times. She did take off at landing and the more we jumped the faster the take off was once she touched the ground. Maybe some ground poles after the jump next time to keep her focus will help.