Ponies got springs

Sunday was jumping day!! Any day that is jumping day is the best day ever. Spoiler alert, my boys were the BEST!

Coolie was up first and he was feeling fresh. He hasn't really jumped much since he got his hocks done and he is clearly feeling the benefits of it. We started warming up by trotting over a cross rail, checking I could land on the correct lead.

From there we added a related line where we immediately ran into problems because we couldn't land on the right lead and Coolie was pulling in the line. We were in struggle town.

I used indirect rein to flex him to the right before the fence and we got it. Coolie definitely prefers landing left and then doing a change. Once we got the lead, we continued around to an upright, landing right again. We needed a few repetitions, and we had to reinstall the half halt through the related line. Once Coolie was reminded he could in fact sit and wait, things went a lot better.

That hind end is feeling great!

We added a bending line to the left which was good. I had to remind Coolie to whoa a few times, but we had reasonable self carriage most times, and he toned down his enthusiasm. We finished the session by really focusing on landing on the right lead. After getting it 3 times in a row we finished up.

We had kept the jumps small, and really focused on being able to maintain the right lead. My homework is to focus on the right lead, and strengthen myself and Coolie to the right.

Henry was next and I really wanted to work on related lines with him. We started warming up over the cross rail, and then we cantered down a related line. Immediately things got interesting, we were crooked, running and nearly didn't make it to the second jump. Jumped it though!

We represented and trotted into the jumps, halting in the related line. We repeated the related line a couple of times, and Henry gradually got more consistent and we managed to canter it without theatrics.

From there we added another upright. Our ability to canter depended greatly on the self carriage of the canter. We had to really tune up the half halt a number of times, by halting 4-5 strides out from the jump. Once we got that quite consistent, we added an oxer with blocks under it as fill. Henry jumped it huge the first time, but was honest and jumped it without hesitating.

We added a bending line to challenge Henry and this was quite do able when we had a good, controlled canter, or when I could bring him back to trot to help his balance.

We started working over the course, and Jonna had me trouble shoot the problems we had. If we had a good canter Jonna had me maintain it and then fix problems as they arose. We had to halt a few times, and I had to bring him back to trot, but we finished on cantering about 10-12 jumps in a row, with no problems. we finished on that, that is the most Henry has done! He is very clever. I really started to get the feel for self carriage with the canter, and there was one magical moment where we had it, and the line was amazing.

My homework with Hen is to keep working on cantering courses. Jonna said leave the jumps at about 65cm, and once he can canter no problems, start adding fill. Once he can canter a course with fill, the fences can start going up.