Brave Jumping Girl

   

Fun day! We had a lesson with Jacel along with Laura and Smarty. I got there a hair early and we took a short hack to the cross country field to warm up. I tried trotting her over a baby log and she swerved and was like "What?! ACKK" but then jumped it. Seriously girl? Maybe she was just surprised and not ready. ;) We hacked up the hill and headed into the arena. 

We warmed up and she felt good. She was fancy! I think the elevator bit makes her extra fancy. After we were ready Jacel had set up a 4 jump one stride. They were super high cross rails but she dropped them all at first except the first one. The other 3 were groundpoles. We trotted in and cantered out. Each time we went through she added another cross rail until we were jumping 4 giant cross rails in one strides. And Lyric was brave! She got a little confused and was a little weak at first, but she got brave and was doing the 4 one strides and jumping nicely. Jacel had us halt at the end on a straight line. 

Then we added to that. We did the 4 one strides, halted, then trotted over a double cross rail oxer and then did a bendy turn to a low bounce. Jacel let us go trhough the bounce once just on it's own as Lyric doesn't do those very often and we didn't want to scare her. But luckily she just bounced on through. The first time we did the whole exercise, I rode the inside rein and didn't soften her and it was icky. The second time, we got a softer trot coming in, then landed in a canter and immediately got her soft and then I rode with my outside rein and inside leg. And even though she was on the wrong lead, it rode way smoother. 

So then we added the fake corner around to the vertical and then back to the double cross rail oxer and then finished on a bigger oxer. (Still fairly small though). The fake corner was basically just a V oxer, but still... she hadn't seen one of those before. She was so brave and jumped all of it first time. She's much braver in stadium than XC. Much less processing required. We did that a few times to work on getting her soft and rideable between fences. And it made such a big difference at the fence and for her form. It was awesome! 

We ended with just three fences in a row, starting with the big oxer. She was super so I decided to quit with that. I could have reversed it and done it the other way, but why? She was being good... I had figured out what I needed. Other than muscle memory, there was no reason. And I didn't want to fatigue her. So we hacked with Laura and Smarty to the gray barn and then Lyric and I hacked back home alone. I've been trying to focus on some fitness with her too. But it was getting a bit later in the day and it was still hot, so we didn't stay out too long.