Jumping Bean

We had a great lesson today! We rode with Kelly Eaton and did a stadium lesson. We even jumped some novice height! 

 

We started out with our warm up and then started jumping. Kelly pointed out that a few strides out, sometimes Lyric will start to lower her front end and hunker down. This drops her front end and she literally sinks. I honestly didn't feel it. Sigh. She told me to keep sending her, but not chasing her... Pop the clutch! And it's not just holding my hands up to keep Lyrics front end up, it's riding her up into the contact..up into my upright shoulders. And... when I did that... I could feel the difference. I couldn't feel the drop until I felt her not dropping. Ahhhh. Okay... it's hard though. Because she doesn't do it all the time. But if I keep my shoulders up and thinking forward (instead of dropping them down and sucking back) and keep my leg on the gas pedal without chasing her... she does much better! 

 
We also worked on shock and awe. I thought I might die! I mean... Dan takes it like a man, but Lyric is so sensitive. I thought for sure I'd be blasted off when I did the "shock" part. So we picked up the walk... then I asked for trot and it was "meh". So I went back to walk and asked again and popped her. She was so good and took it like a woman! And then she was much more responsive after. We tried it with the canter too. And it works! She doesn't need quite as much reminding as Dan though, and I'm a bit more delicate with my "shocking". But that helped too with getting her to stay upright and not drop her shoulders at the base, because she was more responsive to my leg aids. 

 
We were riding with Prairie and Jackson and after we had jumped the course two times, Prairie asked to jump a bit bigger. Kelly told her yes, but said first she had to jump this height again. So Prairie did and then mentioned that her horse might not have much gas left in the tank. So Kelly put the fences up and then told me to go while Jackson caught his breath. Um.. okay! But yay! Lyric didn't even flinch at the bigger heights. I asked later and Kelly told me a few were novice height. So after we went, Prairie picked up the canter and three strides in Jackson ripped his shoe off and stepped on it and went lame. Doh!! I felt so bad for her. She was a good sport though. 

 
So then she headed back to the barn and I took Lyric on a solo hack, which was so nice.  She was good. I do think she's happier with the ulcer meds too!

 




Then we had a nice sunset. 

Oh, and... before my lesson... she was goofy and went to running instead of letting me catch her. We were almost late! 









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