But with me in the irons this time. I haven’t jumped Henry XC since Holly Hill at the end of April, so I wanted to get out and gallop a few fences since I figured it was probably my last chance before Coconino. Bobby wanted to do the same, and since Trainer was away at a show we decided to just haul over to MeadowCreek together for an informal little mini-school. Spoiler, it was hot as balls. Humid too, because why not be as miserable as possible.

We unloaded, got on the boys, did some trot sets, then Bobby went off to do some gallop sets while I hopped over a few warmup fences. After that we headed over to the big field that has the most Training fences in one area, because I wanted to jump the first half of the Training course.

I came out of the box and tried to really let Henry flow forward, since I have the tendency to micro-manage the hell out of him and pull. I perhaps took that idea a little too far at fence 2, where I saw a flyer 6 strides out. Luckily Henry saw it too and moved up, took a hell of a leap, and made it work. Pony has plenty of hops. Bless him.

Fences 3, 4, and 5 are all pretty basic. A little bit narrow faced but nothing big or scary. Fence 6 is the giant ass cliff drop that I swore I wasn’t gonna be the first to jump him off of, but he was going so well that I just did it. And he was super. Like.. he even jumped down it like a semi-normal horse instead of his signature crackhead leap. Maybe he’s figuring it out?

Then we went around and jumped 7ab, the half coffin, which he’s schooled before. Ain’t no thang. I went back through fences 5 and 6 a few times… I was trying to get him to land from the little house and TROT off the drop, but after the first time he was cocky and having none of it. Pretty sure he was saying “Moooom, only babies trot off the drops, you’re embarrassing me!”. We compromised with the teeniest canter ever.

It was disgustingly hot by that point, and the boys had been great, so we called it quits. Henny was forward and happy and super game, so I’m good with that! He feels so confident right now, I can’t wait for his move-up this weekend. Training is starting to not look big anymore, we’re getting more comfortable carrying more speed, and he seems to have no problem with the more technical questions. He’s hunting the jumps and taking me to them. Still glad that Trainer is going to be the one in the irons for his first couple of Trainings, but I’m also feeling more and more confident about it for myself. It’s starting to feel more like a “we can do this!” instead of a “we can do this?”.

And of course, no XC post is complete without Henny ears! I have something fun in the works for those helmet cam ears, hopefully y’all will see at Coconino…