CT Jump School #2

Our exercise for today consisted of this poorly drawn out diagram, and a nice walk hack afterwards. The exercise was a gymnastic set on the centerline that had three trot poles to a crossrail to a one stride vertical, then depending on lead cirling back around on the long approach to a diagonal vertical (left or right). Not the greatest exercise for us (we're working on WAITING) but it was helpful. She was excellent through the gymnastic, and good coming down to the verticals, but we didn't have much in the way of schooling AFTER the jumps, which is important to me at this point. She was botching her changes - cross-cantering instead of making clean changes most of the time - so it's definitely time for some Adequan. We warmed up w/t/c and a few changes (a few good ones from left to right, a few not so good ones right to left!), and jumped the single verticals. We started off without the vertical in the gymnastic, then added it in at varying heights, and she did just fine with it, but as I said before, she was coming off the jump on whatever lead and then cross-cantering instead of switching fully to the correct lead whenever I asked. I'm not sure if it was a balance thing (pretty tight, fast turn) or if it's an Adequan deal, but we're going to go with the Adequan for now! She did perfectly in the gymnastic every single time, and was pretty good coming down to the verticals too, left and right. We finished with coming down the long approach to one of the verticals, and swinging around the short side to the next vertical. I felt in particular our last one that we did was very balanced - she actually switched her leads one stride out from the first fence in preparation for going into the corner on that particular lead, and she waited for the next fence (so did I). She also switched her lead from right to left (yay!) after the second jump, but alas, was also going warm factor 9 for whatever reason, and only that particular time. I figured not to push too many issues at once, because she did some right back to me when I asked, and called it a day, finishing up with a nice hack down the driveway and around the barn with Laurel, the girl that owns the grey pony Hermione, and who was also jumping with me today. Elisa (another boarder that we like to call "Georgina Morris") showed up right on cue and helped me set up, and then gave us a 'lesson' of sorts... meaning, she couldn't NOT stand in the middle of the arena and comment on whatever we were doing! She definitely knows what she's talking about jumping-wise though, and she gave me one image I'll have to remember: People tend to think of energy in jumping as a big, forward-rolling ball, but that we ought to keep the image of a backwards rolling ball in our minds, because that takes the energy we're creating and shifts it to the back end, lifting and lightening the shoulders in preparation for a catty leap off the ground.

I dig.

I can't quite decide if I want to give Gogo the day off tomorrow, or to ride dressage. If I ride dressage, I get to work alone... which I like a lot. I have a mountain of tack in my room just waiting to be cleaned... but I kinda don't really want to do it! I need to get some hot cocoa, put in a good Christmas movie and go at it, but I'm getting kind of sleepy. The only really hard part about my job is getting up early. I'm a morning person for sure but only if I get a full night's sleep.

And, I also happily report, I am still pleased as punch with the trim job I did on Gogo yesterday. :D