There were a lot of things I couldn't do at my old barn because the horses had a demanding schedule. They were in too many lessons for me to get to jump all the time or take tight turns, or really, which was totally reasonable. But at my new jumper barn, the horses aren't ridden half as much, and my instructor is determined to turn us into show jumpers.
Today's lesson went as follows:
Warmed up posting without stirrups at the walk and then at the trot.
Practiced square halts.
Practiced cantering from the halt.
Then did the following starting at the trot:
The short lines are cavaletti blocks that my instructor made "parking spots" with. Then from the halt we cantered immediately into a turn and popped over a cross rail and, later, small jump. I did it okay on Calvin going both ways. It probably didn't look beautiful, but we got through it. My instructor pointed out how trotting to a halt and then asking for the canter created this great rocking motion that got the horse going.
It got tricky when the jump was at 2' 6". Calvin could tell I wasn't as confident and wouldn't do it. We ended up taking the jump straight on from a trot just to end on a good note.
A really fun exercise overall, and I got a taste of what those jumper turns feel like.
Today's lesson went as follows:
Warmed up posting without stirrups at the walk and then at the trot.
Practiced square halts.
Practiced cantering from the halt.
Then did the following starting at the trot:
It got tricky when the jump was at 2' 6". Calvin could tell I wasn't as confident and wouldn't do it. We ended up taking the jump straight on from a trot just to end on a good note.
A really fun exercise overall, and I got a taste of what those jumper turns feel like.
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