Worth the wake up call
Jacel offered to do lessons this morning because she had to cancel Tuesday but she wanted to ride her horse too, so she asked if we could do early. How early, cause....? :) Ha! She initially said 7 am. Ugh... I mean... I guess. I did tell her that it was hard because I had to leave for Ashland at 6 to make a 7 am lesson and it's hard to feed and load in the dark. So.. she settled on 7:30. ;) But.. it meant that I could get one ridden and then get another ridden and still have the day with Mike.
So I set my alarm for 5:45 and hoped for the best. And brrrrr it was chilly this am! I managed to get them all fed and caught Lyric easily and she loaded like a champ! The good hay in the hay bag might have helped. We got to Ashland at 7 am and it was still fairly dark! Like probably too dark to jump, so good thing we bumped it up 30 minutes. I got tacked up and we headed out. And it was so pretty!! It was worth it. It was foggy and the sun was rising and it was just quiet and pretty!
We had a good lesson. We had some stops and I almost came off once. My fault not hers. We were cantering up to the coop and I got too aggressive. She hesitated and I jumped up her neck and spanked her shoulder with my crop and she ducked out and almost tipped me off. But my new stirrups helped me stay on. I'm trying not to focus on the stops and the issues. It's frustrating though that I've had her going on 3 years now (Has it been 3? or two? either way)... and we're still struggling at BN... and BN at Ashland. BUT... but.... I also need to remind myself how far we've come. She's not an easy ride. She's emotional. She's insecure. She's growing still. She's not even 6 yet! She's figuring stuff out and we're making progess. She has come a long way. And we'll get there. I just need to keep reminding myself that she's going to be worth the slow process. And to not rush things. She needs the time she needs. And I am so proud of her. We had a whole lot of good today!
We warmed up quite nicely and while she wanted to lay onto my left leg, when I asked her to stand up and carry herself, she did. And without me even having to get tough (and no spurs). She was actually quite nice in her flat warm up, even on the hills and terrain. She's really learning to carry herself! So then we warmed up and we had some really good jumps to start. Jacel had us go to the BN cabin fairly quickly and it was good. Then we tried the novice one (I think... maybe it was the BN one and we started with starter? I don't know... they looked big until I was out hacking later with Dan and walked by them again! Ha!) and we had a stop. Twice. Or... wait, maybe she jumped it the first time but it was awfully sticky and when we tried again, we had two stops. Regardless, they were my fault and then we decided to not create issues and come back to it. She jumped the two BN roll top/brush things and the baby coop. Then we went and did the bigger coop that I hate. Which, today, looked rather small. But we came up to it and I was fairly confident and we had a stop. That's the one I almost fell off on. sigh... But I fixed my riding and she jumped it fine after that. Then we did the up bank, from a canter, to the hogsback just fine. Jacel laughed at me and said it was silly because most people are afraid of the hogsback and I just popped over it, but the silly boring cabins scared me. She laughed and told me to keep being me. So then we did the triple log. I don't know if they rebuilt it or if they brought out a second one.. because there are two now... and one is way bigger. Like... maybe novice bigger? Maybe not.. maybe it just looked that way. And the top big middle log is freshly "shorn" so it was whiter. We had a stop. And not just a stop, but she propped hard and threw her shoulder left about 6 strides back. It was on a slight downhill approach too and I just got off balance enough that I couldn't get back behind the motion so I knew we didn't stand a chance. I walked her up to it and let her sniff it and see it. We tried again and she stopped. This time not that far back but more of a dirty stop. So Jacel said that the first time was a fair stop because she was scared and confused. The second time was just her using her fear as an excuse. So I let her sniff it again and then tickled her with the crop and clucked. Basically to to convince her I wanted her to go over it. So then we tried again and she went. It was a hair sticky but she actually jumped it out of stride. We did it the other direction and then back again the first direction. Yay!
We jumped a few other things and then finished with a line of two fences. Jacel told me to pick the middle roll top or the big one on the right (It was only 3" taller). Then to canter on to the novice cabin that we struggled with in the beginning. I was tempted to be brave and do the bigger roll top but decided to stick with the middle one (which she jumped the other day when we were out on our own!) and she jumped it great. Then we went on to the big cabin and she jumped it great too! We were going to quit with that but Jacel saw my face and was like "do you want to do it again for your sake?" and I was like "yes.. but I want to be brave and do the big roll top!". So we did. Except... we stopped at the roll top the first time. She propped hard and popped me up out of the saddle. (I stayed on! Just got popped up). I think I got a little too cocky. So we circled and came back and she jumped it great! Then we got to the cabin and she was a little bit past her distance because she got a hair too big. I half halted and she listened and rebalanced, so it was fine, but she didn't shorten enough so we just got in a little deep. But she jumped and it was fine! So phew!
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