Natural High

Yesterday when I got up I got a cup of coffee and sat down at the computer. Somehow I ened up on Youtube watching Lucinda Green clinics recorded by students. i was so inspired I started looking around in my yard for things I could put out in my "arena" to jump. I got a couple ideas.

Today I got some of my homework done and headed out to make my jump thoughts a jump course. I found a few more cement blocks, a piece of siding that looks like a wall, and a log seat that was rotting in the front yard so I decided to take that for a log skinny. It was great, it looks like a course, a somewhat real one. Anyway, after setting them all up and getting yelled at for driving on someones grass, whatever, I went back to the house to get my trusty steed.

 My awesomeness

I set up a fan jump, inspired by the Lucinda video, at 2'6" and then a vertical at 2'9". I also had barrels, a small coop and my log jump. The log jump was only like 2ft. We warmed up (in the kimberwike today) at a trot and a figure 8 canter, with flying lead changes. He got everyone too :) Then we went over the log jump, he never ducked or paused, he just went over. Sweeeeet! I think my riding has helped alot. He was more forward and never thought once of refusing and his speed was a bit more steady. I mean, he was still pretty fast, or faster than i would have liked, but it was steady fast. i thik the kimberwicke helped too. It went great, we only jumped for about 15 minutes (with pauses in between for recovery). At the end of our ride I thought well he jumped that 2'9" with ease, so what about 3'? My curiousity got the best of me. I walked over to the

standards and raised the vertical. HERE is the video.

After our last jump I dismounted, completely high from the 3ft perfection, and loosened the saddle and walked home on foot. He totally deserved it. Back at the house I grabbed the hose and all the bath fixin's. I have been waiting for bath day for a few months now. Olly enjoys bath time, I think when he saw me grab the hose he thought "ummmm, mom? Are you sure it is warm enough???" He bit his toungh and enjoyed the currying that followed.



Here are some pics from his bath...

Before

After

He LOVES to drink out of the hose, he will go to great lengths to get it...

Husband stealing my water hose....for the boat.

Nothin' better than a clean tail.

His tail touches the ground. Now you know why I have the tail bag.

For those of you who don't understand see this blog.

My unicorn....hehe. Doesn't he look amused?

This is a short video of Olly after his bath. Benni seems to think he is bigger than Olly.

Jim Wofford book in motion

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!