Jumping

Over the last few days we jumped most of the horses on the farm. Denny really likes to take is slow with the young horses. We trot a lot of fences with them and keep it simple. This allows them to build confidence in a stress free way. When the horse is allowed to figure out what to do before the fence on their own when trotting, they gain tons of confidence in themselves. If you canter the horse right off the bat and dictate where exactly they need to take off from they will not necessarily learn to help you figure it out. There are few people who can get in to every fence on every horse perfectly every time. If you miss you distance and your horse has had to help you figure out what to do in the past he will likely be able to get out of the situation. Sometimes when a horse has only been ridden by a really good professional who gets in prefect all the time and is bought by an amature the horse doesn't know what to do when he gets in wrong.

Anyway, one of the days I was riding Rosie, Denny's off the track thoroughbred mare. She is coming 5 this year and has done some jumping with Denny this fall. I have been riding her since we arrived in Southern Pines and aside from popping her over a cross rail in the indoor a few times I haven't really jumped her. As I mentioned before she can be a bit hot at times and so we have been riding her in the indoor to start with. It is funny because even if I only ride her in the indoor for 15/20 min and then go outside she is, well has been (knock on wood!) perfect. The other day she was very quiet and Denny had me trot the cross rail still set up in the indoor, she trotted very calmly over it. After that Denny decided to go to the outdoor and if she seemed quiet to jump some of the small jumps there. Rosie was being perfect so I trotted her around and popped over some of the small verticals and small boxes we have. I was quite awed when she came up over the purple planks. They were quite shiny in the sun and she felt amazing going over them, she really came up with her wither and cracked her back over them. She was so good we went out to the cross country and jumped some of the small elementary fences we have. Rosie is a very good jumper and seemed quite confident, she didn't look at a thing. This horse could get fried pretty easily, if we just galloped her around and made her jump all the novice jumps, sure she would probably do it but we would probably create a rusher and eventually a rusher and quitter. Not that we won't start cantering her to jumps more but if she is having a high day, we will just trot her and if she is still high we would probably wait until another day. You can't have an agenda with babies, you have to be very patient.

We had a similar rides on Atti and Simply the next day. They are more experienced than Rosie and tend to be quieter. We trotted them over some slightly larger fences in the ring and then went out to the cross country. They were perfect and just trot trot trotted all the jumps without feeling the need to accelerate or run at the jumps. I was pretty happy Simply wasn't worried every time Atti would go off and jump leaving her behind. They were turned out together in the past and were amazingly bonded. In the past anytime Atti would leave Simply would get very upset and would tend to rush a bit to the fences trying to get to Atti. They have been separated for a few months now and are much easier to ride together. We were just about done and were hacking back by the double up bank, Denny walked Atti toward it to let he sniff it and she jumped right up on to the bank and up the second bank. I figured Denny did it on purpose so I just kept walking and Simply jump popped up them. Denny hadn't meant to go up them but the horses are so confident and are getting so programed to just go jump the jumps with no nervousness. It was pretty funny!

When I was jumping Millie, just warming up I knew she was in a bit high. When I was just cantering around she kept trying to grab the reins and scoot off. When the other horse hit a rail jumping Millie went leaping into the air, she is normally a pretty quiet horse but has her days! Denny had me start trotting some jumps and she tried to just throw herself at the fence. Again, not normally Millie, so we decided to just trot all the fences today. She is quite comfortable, and pretty adjustable, cantering fences but the point of today was to not let her get upset/worried about it. She needed to stay calm and remember jumping isn't some big thing to get worked up about. By the end of the ride she was trotting to the base, rocking back and jumping with ease in a quiet, controled way. It was nice to see her change from wanting to run at the jump to me being able to loop the reins and have her set herself up for the jump.

Diamond Camilla (Millie)

I also got to jump Cordi for the first time in several weeks. I was pretty excited, she is my favorite! I was in a lesson with Denny on Skybreaker and Laura on John Burgesses' horse Stevie. Cordi has done much more jumping than the horses I ride and she doens' necessarily jump as well if the jumps are too tiny. So we jumped her a bit bigger than the other babies, only around Novice height. For not having jumped her in a while I felt pretty in tune with her. It is important for me to keep Cordi in a packaged, energetic canter. She would like to get long to the fences and if I keep her more together but forward I can make adjustments much more easily. She was a little bucky to a couple fences which means I was probably using my hand a bit too much. She also hasn't been asked to sit and carry her canter much lately so that may have had something to do with it as well. She felt really good other than that! We didn't jump many fences because she was being so good and hasn't jumped in so long, so we kept it short and sweet!

Beaulieu's Cool Concorde (Cordi)