Up and Round

Before anything else - look how much weight the pony has put on! Her hindquarters are really filling out and you can no longer see any ribs. Muscularly she has also continued developing her top line, including the muscles that run down either side of her spine, and on either side of the top of her neck. She looks a little crest-ier, but its all muscle.

Anne came out this morning around 8 to give me a lesson, and we spent about 30 minutes on the actual over fences portions of the lesson. We began with the combination she set up, a two stride to a one stride. In the beginning I rode it as a three to a two since they were only cross rails, so it would ride a bit longer. We then continued to work on riding fences on an angle, and practicing my crest-release. Anne thinks that if I use a crest release and completely stay out of her face over the fence she will jump better. It began to work about halfway through the ride.

As Anne put the jumps up in height Pony began jumping better, and coming back to me through the turns. She put the jumps up to about 2'9, with a 2'9 square oxer (big spread!) as the middle jump, and thats when Pony really started to get what was going on. We had one bad run through where she got a bad spot, knocked the first, looked at the second (jumped like a deer!) and then made it out of the third. After that one, I rode her more forward to the fences, and stayed out of her way. As soon as I changed gears and rode her forward (not chasing) we got all our spots and jumped everything round.

Anne is really happy with where we are right now and thinks that I should enter her in the 2'6 to start, but plan to move her up depending on how she acts. She joked that maybe we should even try the $500 Child/Adult Jumper Classic (3'). She said if we can win that we will definitely generate a lot of interest in her. I laughed, but I have the confidence in her abilities to be open to that possibility should she be well behaved. I also want to be careful with her mental state though, so right now our only plans are to do the 2'6.

Julie decided that she wants to show Sunday, so we will ship out at 7am Sunday morning. I think she is just showing her one mare in a W/T/C class which runs just before mine.