Finally, a little bit of lesson video! First I have to say: the weather for our lesson was freaking miserable. Low 40’s with drizzly cold rain. It was a group lesson with a lot of people in it, so every time we were sitting there waiting for our turn to go I just about turned into a solid block of ice.

We started out easy with just crossrails then a little oxer then a couple of lines, then put it together into a really twisty course. We were in the top ring which is pretty small and there were lots of jumps with tight turns and short approaches. For it to ride well you really had to come forward out of turn, otherwise you’d just get “stuck”. This is a pretty ideal course for us because my biggest problem is my tendency to NOT keep coming forward out of the turn… so it was tricky but a good exercise for me. If you didn’t keep coming forward, it didn’t work out. Period.

The video is a pretty good example of that. My completely crooked wiggly botch at fence 6 is because I clamped up instead of continuing to let him go forward. The rest of it, where I actually put my leg on and kept going, worked out decently.

IMG 8821 from amanda chance on Vimeo.

Fence 1 was an oxer, 6 bending strides to the plank at 2. Then around the corner (which was very tight and short) to 3, 4 and 5 – a 3 stride to 2 stride combination. 6 was a little vertical, broken line with a short approach to the oxer at 7. It was one of the harder angles but actually rode pretty well. Then a tight left rollback around to 8, the gate, with a very short approach to 9 (easy to blow right past if you didn’t get them back quickly after 8), then 3 forward strides to 10. Fences 11 to 12 rode as a going 4 or a whoaing 5.

It was a sea of plain white jumps. For the most part I was satisfied with how it went, but felt like I was a little sloppy, a little reactive instead of proactive, and of course WTF at fence 6. Very happy with my horse though and how well he listened and how very honest and game he was. Somebody get dat pony a halo.

After the lesson I clipped him again… yes, clip #2 already. Ugh. This time I left his legs since they hadn’t regrown much and he’s awful about them. Definitely not my best clip job but I was frozen and in a hurry and he kinda wanted to kick me in the head so it’ll do.

Sunday was decidedly non-horsey, unless you count washing saddle pads. The grocery store and new brakes on my car are not that interesting. But I did use a couple gift cards and go buy some actual winter clothes. Well… winter-ish. Better than what I had, at least! Hope everyone else had a good weekend! Just gotta make it through a 4 day work week and then we’re off to our first event.