Today we did some jumping for the first time in at least 2 months. I have a feeling the last time we jumped anything was when we went cross country schooling, which was the beginning of September I think! So it was nice to actually get back into it!
Scottie was so good and actually I think the time off he has had recently has done him the world of good. Out of no where it seems we have mastered cantering on both legs! If he continues to pick up the right leg I am hoping to enter our first prelim dressage test in December. But back to the jumping!
You wouldn’t have known Scottie hadn’t jumped recently, he was good as gold. (Apart from a cheeky sop at the first jump, but that was more rider error than anything else!) There was nothing scary for him to look at but he jumped very nicely and we were probably jumping around 70-80cm, which is about as high as I have ever jumped him! It shows that Scottie needs to be jumping a bit bigger though, as he is getting very lazy with picking his feet up!
One of the jumps was put up to about 90cm. This shouldn’t have been an issue. However, on the approach Scottie ‘s attention was on a horse coming up the track and not the jump in front of us. So he scrambled over it and got his legs in a tangle with a pole. This had scared him a bit and he stopped when we tried the jump again. However, putting it back to a cross and then a wonky straight and then back up to 90cm, he jumped it happily. So happily that he didn’t pick his feet up and had the top pole again! \but this isn’t an issue as long as he is happy to jump it.
This just shows that Scottie really needs to be jumping 80cm and higher at home so that he actually has something to think about. But this is still such an improvement on how we were doing before the summer. I think we have both got a lot more confident and think we just need to do more now. I’m hoping to try and jump at least once a week (we will see how that goes!) We have entered a show at the beginning of December where we will be doing the 65cm and the 75cm classes (which will look tiny!) Hopefully we wont have too many issues with fillers and do a nice couple of rounds.
I was also very lucky and got a GoPro for my birthday. I am now trying to ride in it as often as possible and I rode it jumping today. So here is the highlights of our session today!
We jumped with Scottie’s girl friend Milly and Eva from Believe Ponies. I have some video of them too which I’m sure Eva will share with you!
Last Updated on 14/01/2022
