This morning we got up and went for a morning ride. I had husband take some cinder blocks out to my "arena" to make a make-shift oxer. I need to build a few more standards to complete the line, but those will do for now. We started out with some trotting, which after a few strides ended in a canter, it took a few times around to get him to realizie that I was serious. When he gets so forward it is tough to keep him focused. I constantly have to change directions and gaits. And I try to avoid cantering until he settles in. It was cooler this morning so that added to it too. After we were ready to focus (about 30 minutes) we started with the line we finished with on Wed. He did it with ease (yeah!!). The next step Jim's (we are on a first name basis lol) book is to change the vertical into an oxer. I first changed it into an acending oxer so he could get used to the depth. I want to make sure he doesn't refuse any jumps. He is so sensitive with trust, if I keep him on a good path then maybe he will eventually just go with whatever I put him against.
After a few tries of the acending oxer we moved on to an oxer 18" high with a 2'6" spread. The goal is to jump wider than the oxer is higher. My thought was that he was going to over jump the oxer to compensate the width, to my surprise, he didn't. He jumped it great. I went back and looked at the video later and it showed that he jumped higher than he needed, but not wider. Goal accomplished :)!
At the end of our jumping session we went on a short trail ride. Olly loves trails. It seems more like a reward than a cool down. Fine by me either way. He deserved them both!
That's awesome! He seems like such a different horse than before you left!
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