Calm Jumping Day

Today was Kelly Lesson Day!! I did double duty so I rode Dan first in the morning and then came back for an 11-o-clock jump lesson with Lyric. I was a hair bummed as the two girls I was jumping with were doing cross rails. But it worked out well. It allowed me and Lyric to have a good confidence boosting ride. I hacked her out to the XC field before we started and we walked into the lake and up out of the bank. She wouldn't go down the drop into the water though. We tried two spots and she said no so we just went in during the regular part and then walked up and out again. Then we walked up the hill to get our hill work in. Then we headed to the arena for our lesson and got some trots in to warm up. 

 

We started out the lesson with a canter and Kelly reminded me to ride Lyric's shoulders. She said not to let her ping pong around and not to worry about her head or hiney, but get her shoulders lined back up. And I practiced my leg yielding in and out in our transitions and it helped! She was actually quite nice and rideable today. Apparently it's only chaos out on cross country. 

 

We started with a ground pole to a cross rail and Lryic was super. She was wiggly though so I had to ride her shoulders and stay soft and quiet and not jump ahead or get too big in my body with the jump. The first time she asked us to land in a definitive canter in a straight line. Ha ha.. We landed in a ploppy trot. But the second and third time we cantered nicely. 

So then we did that again and circled to the left to do another cross rail and then circle to the right to do another cross rail. She was great! Although she wanted to peter out and join her friends in the shade upon landing after the third fence as "they were right there"! But we fixed it. We had some really nice rides actually. She kept adding, which is okay because I wasn't asking. And adding is better than taking a flyer. But when I added more leg, she said "okay" and jumped out of stride. Yay! 

 

So then we did the same thing again but came back around to the 2nd jump again from the other direction in our "tour" and she was still super! Good girl!

So yep. There's part of me that was so tempted to ask if we could jump the bigger stuff and there's part of me that's sad that we didn't. BUT... we had a very successful and confidence building day for us both. We were polite and calm and maintained our rhythm and I was able to ride effectively because I wasn't being flung around up top left and right. So it was a good day! 

I was giggling though because I did have to slow her trot and canter down a hair. She gets quick but she's smooth about it. Kelly said she was an armadillo and to slow her roll. Ha ha. Dan was a tuna and Lyric was an armadillo! ha ha.. So much fun though!