Grid Night, Take II

Before the brain came out the first time

I mentioned our less-than-stellar debut at our trainer's weekly grid jumping night. It went badly, didn't improve, and was no fun. Soooo... since my BO was going again this week, I decided to take Courage along this week and give it one more chance. If it didn't improve, then we'd quit pushing and just do lessons until his brain figures out how to handle poles.

We got there. He was semi quiet, so I hopped on and immediately had a serious case of the "I don't want tos". I didn't want to be there, didn't want to ride, didn't want to deal with his (perfectly natural) tension. I also didn't want to address the border collie hiding in the weeds by the arena with a squeaky toy that was making irregular but alarming noises.

We can do contact

I considered just getting off. And then I was like, "Well, you don't have to jump, but dammit you do have to march forward into a contact."

So we did.

And then I started moving him off my legs and changing directions and holding my outside rein, and then I was bored of walking, so we did it at a trot. He was actually feeling quiet good. I swear after one flat lesson last weekend he grew a new muscle in a neck and kicked his training up to a whole new level.

And then the instructor was all, "Does he want to trot through the poles?"

So we did.

In our flat lesson last week, she'd talked about how if I bring him under powered to jumps, then he feels like he has to leap, which changes his balance and causes the flailing as he tries to figure things out. Hm. I intentionally took him more forward with a little loop in the reins and he trotted through like a pro.

She started adding in little crossrails. By the end of the exercise, he would trot to the first jump, then land cantering and canter through the crossrail grid. In balance. With a loop in the rein.



<3

Seriously having some Courage love here. My little man is ready to start doing real horse stuff.

So brave

When we were done, we went and hacked around the property with all the horses in his group and even lead the way back to the trailer, which included boldly marching through an ankle-deep puddle on the road. Guess who is the best at puddles?

PS I attempted to add grid video. Let me know if it works.