More Jumpies: Whoops!

 Yahoo!! Jacel was able to teach again! I ended up deciding to do a lesson with Laura to help give Jacel a bit more time to herself, even though I was really wanting a flat lesson. BUT... also, jumping is fun and I always love my jumping lessons with Jacel too. And Laura is fun. So, it wasn't a big deal either way. 

 

Patrick ended up coming early enough that I was able to get to Ashland early before the lesson and take Lyric for a hack. I wanted to do our hill work and conditioning for that stifle. We headed out and she was so good. She's gotten really game at solo hacks. We didn't hit any creeks because I was aiming for hills and had to time it so that I would be back in time for my lesson. But we did lots of hills and then, because it was part of my plan to do small jumps or XC options every time we were out there so it wasn't quite so stressful, I did trot her over the log on the backside of the swimming lake. She trotted over it happily and landed in a canter. Then when we got to the xc field, we walked down the medium bank. And then we ended up trotting over a small log in the XC field. Then... I figured... well, maybe something a little bigger... so I cantered to the triple log stack. Which... isn't big, but.. it's bigger than I remembered. She squirted out to the right. So.. we went and trotted another small log. Then I trotted the triple stack and she jumped it fine. Yay! So then we cantered along and cantered the small coop. Good girl! Let's quit with that... we still have a jump lesson to do! Plus, we jumped more than we should have the last ride too. We hadn't been doing a lot of jumping in a long time, so... probably should have been nicer to her, but... whoops! 

 

We walked up the hill twice and then it was time to go for our lesson. We warmed up and then Jacel had us trot through the grid that was there from the other day. She had a single vertical set up. Lyric was pretty good. She was a little quick and definitely leaning against my left leg. We talked about riding her into the outside rein, off the inside leg, and getting her to stretch the outside of her body. She also said that we needed to set the bar high... set the expectations high, but allow for below the bar. In other words... if we don't ask her to step up to the plate, she won't. But we don't expect her to step up to the plate immediately... but she has to try. And if she gets halfway there... great... then 3/4 of the way there, great. Then eventually all the way. But if we only ask for 1/2 way... then we'll never get past 1/2 way. We ran through that a few times and Lyric was getting quick. So we did a large half halt and thought about trotting but didn't. It helped a lot. Also, I was hanging on her vs just asking for a half halt and releasing. 

 

Then we did the grid, halt in a straight line, and then pick up the canter, turn to the outside line, trot a few strides before the fence, then a nice jump and canter out. That helped get Lyric thinking vs just running for the fence. However, I did point out to Jacel that it was a nice thing that she was taking me to the fences! :) So then we went the other way off the grid and did the same thing. It really did help. So then we finished with a small course of 4 fences and I trotted the first one... then trotted the 2nd and 3rd and let her canter the 4th. We did one final loop and since she had been so good I let her canter all 4 and it was a nice polite and civilized course. We did get a funky distance to the 3rd fence because I held a bit too much but she just drifted hard right to give herself room. That was okay because she was smart about it. And she wasn't trying to run out.. she didn't stop. She just... figured out how to make it work. Good girl!

 
We quit with that even though it was tempting to jump the last big jump, but... I didn't. I'm kind of proud of me because that's hard for me to do. 

 

 

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