Check Out my Sexy Bay Horse

plus put barrel under jump for de-spooking

In our barrel jumping adventures last week, I noticed that Courage was jumping a little too up and down and not enough forward and out. Part of that is because I was keeping things slow and not really letting him canter forward over them, but part was because he hasn't jumped all winter and needed a reminder how all the body parts work.

So when Redheadlins came out to play on Epic Pony Saturday, it was high time to lunge Courage over some jumps so he could figure out how to work all the parts without a rider interfering.

It's a strategy I've used for him before and been really happy with the results.

SLICE IT. Fix that distance.

He isn't super jumping fit right now and we are just trying to help him learn. We kept it really simple--he's on a lunge line to give me control over the pissing off/galloping away that he might otherwise try (which is not productive), and we only jumped each height 1 or 2 times nicely, then told him what a good boy he was and reset it.

He's definitely stronger to the left right now, but he gave the right a good, solid effort.

Oh, you don't believe me? What if I have it all in high def slow motion video courtesy of iphone?

I DO

jumping the standards because we can

All that to say.

HOT DAMN.

And OMG YOU GUYS you should have seen him start to open up his back end over the oxer, which is unfortunately not on any of the videos I've seen so far, but it's coming along.

Like... once he's more jumping fit, we're going to try this again, because there are gears in there we've never even touched.

Ahem. The whole entire point was to get Courage on more of a bascule, jumping out and across instead of just up and down.

Misson accomplished.