Conquering the Wall

Rivermont Farm in Lyerly, Georgia is a little more than an hour from here and where Bandon and I have been doing our shows the past few months. Ashley also opens the arena for rental between events for training purposes. She has a good substrate that doesn't cause the slick mud issues, pot holes, and slight inclines that I have on my turf, add-in her amazing jumps and it made for enough of a case to ask my hubby to haul out the kids with my horse and I on a sweltering morning for some jump schooling.

Bandon has been put over her crossrails with flowers underneath, my crossrails with flowers underneath, and my plain bar jumps, we needed to try some new things if we were serious about pursuing the Jumper ring. The panel jump and the wall jump were high on my list to try and it didn't seem fair to throw them at him in a show ring with no prior schooling at all.

For a horse who has never tried, the panel presents the challenge of trust. The horse can't see the ground on the other side and putting their legs and feet in danger is one of a horse's most primal instincts to avoid. The panel was set low, Bandon broke stride to hesitate then launched, putting me ahead of his balance, it was as good a start as any.

Rainbow jump was set a little higher and he was almost too eager to face it, we circled off once to gather our wits before jumping it.

Bandon bucked after landing a few times, his adrenaline/joy made me smile. He threw awkward strides and found his pace, even so we were able to stay out of each other's way.

The biggest obstacle was the wall. With limited riding over summer break, I've had lots of daydream hours and built up incredible confidence. I'd go so far as to say swagger. Yep. I was going to sail my horse over everything without batting an eye.

Then I was in front of the wall, feeling the swagger drain out of me like a popped pool float. Someday someone will have to explain to me optics because I'm sure it should have seemed smaller once up on my 16.1 hh horse's back, right? It didn't.

I wasn't afraid of the height, I was afraid of Bandon jumping me out of the tack. We'd done that before a few times on new jumps and if it hasn't happened to you it's hard to explain. Basically, one moment you are propelling your heart and your horse forward, then the next moment you are in the air and no longer connected to your horse, praying in that slow motion time that you'll somehow reconnect with the saddle as gravity claims you. It's worse when your horse leaps after pausing to look... Bandon was notoriously looky.

I sank my heels. I almost forgot, my heels! I had a brand new pair of boots to break-in today and let me just take a second and revel in just how AMAZING it feels to have really good boots! These are boots that under normal circumstances I never would have bought myself, I was lucky enough to win them and they are fan-tastic!!! The leather is all grippy and not like my cheap boots that may or may not have been made by WD40. I know that money doesn't make you a good rider, but apparently good boots help!

So, my heels are deep, my leg is on, and hands are following. I ask him, "Ready to jump, Bandon Boy?" He knows those words and I can feel him finding his 'go' gear as I point his nose towards the wall. Dear God, the wall. Breathing the fear out of me, because I don't want Bandon to think I won't jump with him, here we go!

Forward forward forward, he's going to do it... nope. Stopped dead right in front.

You might see a smile on my face, I was so glad to get that over with. He had never done it before and it was sort of an unrealized fear of mine what it was going to feel like when he did. I've had horses stop dead in a way that is pretty impossible to stay on. Others do this sort of rapid forward motion that changes to backwards sideways motion that also isn't fun to try and cling to. Bandon simply pulled his shoulders differently and I could adapt. He was nice enough to keep me on basically.

We aimed again, same response. Third time, same thing.

Fourth try and I was getting animated, asking him for it, "Come on boy, go! You've got this! Jump it! GOO!" and he did!

Woo-hoo!!!!

My baby did it! It wasn't flawless, but it was him and I together and our efforts towards new and better as we went over 5 or 6 times.

We ended on some simple lines, Bandon beginning to flatten a bit, then called it a day.

What I can take from today was well worth all the efforts to get there (and the hour it took to load him to come home when he decided he didn't like the trailer after all) and I'm so glad we were able to do it. I have some decisions to make now on how to enter the next few shows...