We Jumped Big Girl Jumps!

Today, Satin and I had one of our solo lessons. It was raining all day, so we were in my trainer's small indoor. We started with work on our posting trot, since Miss Mare isn't really a huge fan of the forward, working trot. We worked on pushing her out and getting her to extend and move forward. R had us go to the sitting trot and frame her up, tuck her nose in a bit, and shorten her back to give her more power in her trot as I moved her back up to the posting trot. We worked on getting slight contact and the frame in the more forward trot as well.

Afterwards we did some work on our flying lead changes. R set up two sets with two poles in each set. We cantered figure eights through the sets, using them to get our lead changes. She nailed her lead change from left to right basically every time. Right to left was a bit of a different story, as she would get crooked and loose the hind end. With some pointers from R, we were able to fix this and get nice changes both ways.

Then R added a small vertical to our pattern. Well, at least it started as a small vertical, probably under 2 foot in the beginning, as an extra pole to work on the right to left change, which she got easily coming off of the jump. Soon though R was lifting the rail. Every time or two through the "course" she would walk over and lift the rail a hole, thinking I wasn't paying attention as she was giving me instruction as she did it. She can be quite sneaky when she wants to be. LOL Eventually she got the jump up to about where we have been jumping, around 2'3. Then she lifted the jump a hole and sent me over it on its own. I did it though not without some hesitation. Luckily, Satin had no hesitation and sailed over beautifully.

"How about one more hole?" R said next. I gave her the "do I really have a choice look" and shrugged my shoulders. "Whatever you want". So up went the rail one more time. Satin knocked the rail, but due to rider error. Her toes clipped again on the second time, again my fault as I came out of my 2 point too early. The third and fourth time though she sailed right over and did so beautifully according to R and other onlookers. Felt pretty nice to me too!

Afterwards I asked R about how high the jump was. She brought out her handy measuring tape and announced that it was just over 2'9"! 2'9"!! I was shocked! I figured it was about 2'6" at the most, which was about as high as I thought we would really ever go as my mare is older and small. Seems like I underestimated us both, but luckily R never does!