Wherein Courage Jumps Grids and I Stay On

Radio silence over here. Nothing quite as exciting as flat rides and dealing with life and all that goes along with it. That said, I went all crazy go nuts and entered the little man in the event derby next weekend. We are (of course) in the largest division with the least shot at a ribbon, but no way he's ready to move up at this point.

Anywho. S was back out to give us a lesson this weekend. She liked what we'd been working on and thought it was in his best interests to do some more grid work.

because 12" crossrail=SCOPE CHECK

It was actually quite funny. Courage is green as grass obviously (see: deer leaping over cross rails), but he seems to have a handle on grids. Point down the middle, move feet as indicated by poles. There is some super hilarious video I hope to get soon to share. We started upping the ante a little.

His thing about launching himself into the air over the babyest of jumps makes for great photo ops, but completely precludes "bascule" of any kind. Which you know, we'll sort of want if we ever want to jump clean or make strides or do a course, much less go in the hunters. 

The best at crossrail grids

We started with a placing poles before and after a single crossrail and built the grid up gradually. Courage is a little weaker to the right, recent racehorse and all, so S added some guide rails on the ground to help keep him straight during/after the grid.

It was pretty funny to be able to work on my riding and position while riding the little man. He was quite serious about being the best at grids (even if he's O.V.E.R. flatwork right now), and I practiced exhaling to the base of the jump and keeping my weight in my heels.

S added a final placing pole after the grid to make C-rage actually pay attention and place down over the fence instead of his signature launch into the stratosphere. He deer leaped it the first time we came around because the setup made him a little claustrophobic and contained.. I mean, I was just riding the grid and focusing and feeling the footfalls and keeping my brain slow and all off a sudden I felt like I was 2' out of the saddle and my feet were levitating above the stirrups and my hands were grabbing his ears because his head was in my lap and then he sort of dropped out from under me.

I said something really classy and figured I would be getting closely acquainted with the arena sand in about a half a second, but he landed in a straight line and cantered away quietly and I was still in the middle of him... So there's that.

Jumping like a normal horse. This makes me excited.

We did a couple more lines, and Courage discovered it was possible to in fact jump the jump he was presented with instead of the training/prelim fences he likes to imagine.

Of course, then he decided he ought to be done. 

And S thought he needed to jump a tiny course.

So careful.

The course got done, but not before we "galloped" (aka tried to get his canter going again) several laps around the arena and deer leaped the blue barrels a few times and had some general pissy fits. Still. His brain stayed in his head, I stayed on his back, and we ended on a really good note.

All in all, I think it was excellent prep for our upcoming intro BN debut. Here's hoping, right?