Deep Breaths and Big Smiles

The DragonMare is SO GOOD. Srsly she’s the  bomb dot com.

Our lesson yesterday did not involve any tight turns or crazy difficult exercises- we worked on a grid and then a couple single diagonal jumps. Our main focus with this lesson was getting Addy to come in quietly so I could leg up to the jumps instead of holding her to the base. She has a tendency to run at jumps a bit and I end up having to holdholdhold or we’ll run through the distance, and we’d really rather not have me hauling on her face in front of an oxer.

Addy was such a good girl about this! We came through the grid a couple times and she got better each time- coming in nice and quietly so that the one-strides were soft and flowing, with the oxer out looking like a million bucks.

Once we had the grid in a good place, we added two single diagonal jumps. The goal here was to land off the grid and get a nice short bouncy canter back before coming down a swedish oxer. Then we wanted to get that nice short stride back again before going up a stone wall on the diagonal.

The first few times through, I chose to circle before heading to the single jumps. I tend to tense up a bit when heading down to a single, which leads to Addy getting tense, which leads to freight train mode, which leads to holding her face, which leads to no bueno for anyone involved. So instead of heading straight down the diagonal to the jump, we circled and made sure we were on the same page and breathing. And whatdya know, we got a wonderful relaxed stride up and over the oxer! Then I used the short side to get our little stride back and *GASP* I actually legged up to the stone wall jump!!!

Seriously, OMG. I know this is a pretty normal thing, but legging up to the base has not been something I’ve done with the Beastly Unicorn on a regular basis. It felt SO good to have that adjustability to see the spot and place her exactly where I wanted her. Even when the jumps went up to 3′ (ish? Maybe 3’3″? She jumped it like it was 16′ so I have no idea where the rails were set) we were able to get a bouncy powerful canter to round over the jump. My main instruction from the lesson: “Replicate this ride every time.”

So how am I going to do that? By remembering these main steps:

1. Ask big, ask early, and then soften. Do my homework setting the pace and stride as soon as possible, so I’m not fussing on the approach. Ask as hard as I need to in order to get a response, and then soften and allow her to maintain. Ask again if needed, but every time, give her the opportunity to develop that self-carriage we’re looking for.
2. Believe in the spot. If I lean up her neck every time we get a short spot in, she will decide that the short one STINKS and we’ll go back to taking fliers every time. Shoulders back and wait for her to come up to me.
3. Breathe and smile! Jumping is just flatwork with a few big steps thrown in. And we love to fly. I’ve gotten much better about breathing and relaxing on course lately and I’ve noticed a HUGE difference in the quality of our rides.

I wish I had gotten this on camera, but when I voiced that to my trainer, she just said that I can get this ride every time now and film it next time. I appreciate her foolish faith in me.

This weekend is going to be SUPER awesome- Jenn from Stories from the Saddle is coming to visit!!!  She’s going to come meet the DragonMare, she’ll come with me to try out a couple horses with my trainer, we’ll go to some wineries and brunch and it’s going to be SO MUCH FUN!! She’s promised to write a guest post about the Beastly Unicorn, so get pumped to see that 🙂

Hope you all have as good of a weekend and Jenn and I will ❤