Tuesday I turned Bandon towards my newly dried turf arena to get jumping practice in preparation for Saturday's show. I had committed to move up a level and knew that I needed to work every jump in my arena to be fair to he and I heading into the weekend. All stuff we are capable of, though not as well practiced through the winter.
Bandon cleared the first jump then ducked the next.
Ducking : Horse is on a straight line towards jump, with nice impulsion from his rear, then on the last stride, horse dives left or right crashing the standard or sort of half rearing out of the way of it. Rider either clings or is thrown over the shoulder of the horse and into the poles.
What the heck. He never does that!
Okay, back at it. More leg. More "yeah get it boy, you got this". Damn. Repeat. Three more times. I somehow convince him to pop over a small fence so we end well and stop. Maybe he's sore or something...we'll pasture hack tomorrow and then try again.
Thursday it was still too muddy so Friday we faced the jumps again. I had brushed off the last ride and Bandon had already done stellar flat work for me, aimed at the jump, all systems go, he dodges left. Over and over and over.
It didn't seem to matter how much leg or rein I used, sideways. Even the easy fence heading towards the gate. All ducked. I started worrying I was training him to avoid jumps so we got one jump and stopped.
The show was moved to Sunday and I wasn't sure what to think. It was a harder level, including both a brush and a wall jump that he had not done in a show environment. My confidence was at zero and I could not understand why my totally sound horse stopped loving to jump.
Morning of the show, I was a mess. A sports psychologist would have quit after a 5 minute look into my thought process this morning. "I can't do this. Why am I doing this? He's going to duck the fence and throw me onto the wood rails and my back will be toast. He is already a handful at shows, now I'm looking at harder classes AND coming with fresh training day problems?"
Chris comes in while I'm getting ready and sees the tears in my eyes, clearly assuming I'm partly insane as I tell him that frankly I'm terrified. He begins to ask why I'm doing it at all and I stop him before he can complete the question.
Decision time. Do it, have today be the hardest day but a beginning OR stay home and quit. I can't stay at lower levels, it's not good for me or him. Put up or shut up.
I loaded my horse (who loads by himself now, decent progress for a year) and committed to making this a positive experience for him no matter what. If we jumped a few and pulled up, so be it. If he freaked and ran I'd circle. If he ducked out I'd head down to warm-up and work ground poles. There was a plan for every scenario in my head.
In-hand class he won, acting fairly civilized somewhat thanks to empty wrappers crinkling in my pocket. Impressive since a mare outside the arena had made him lose his boy brain.
Next it was two full courses back to back. I think I was praying out loud at this point, determined to enjoy some part of this but I honestly had no idea what would happen at the first fence and staying on became pretty important.
I put on my lower leg, told him and myself out-loud that we could do this, and we were on course. First fence he stepped a bit left, corrected, then I could feel his rear engage under us and I knew we were in full-flight mode. He jumped beautifully.
At the end of the day, my boy and I turned in rounds with rails up. We had one refusal each course, both times at the brush jump and both I'm sure were my fault. As I put him on the fence a second time he cleared with room to spare. The one time I asked for the wall jump we soared over. The kind souls ringside who had heard my proclamations that we would be able to do this, cheered along with me.
There is lots and lots of room for improvement, including riding straighter after jump lines (to keep him from head down half bucking around curves). Still, we have begun.
I wish I could go back to myself Friday and say to chill out over a bad training session, believe my long distance trainer, and not assume that I'd wrecked my horse for jumping. I also would love to tell my tearful terrified self early this morning that I was about to fly over jumps on my best friend and all the things I want to do with him would begin to happen.
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