Thursday 21 June 2012

Felix VS the black tube

Came back from 2 months away working on Tuesday, and went out for a ride.

There were 2 TINY little jumps in the ring, so I figured "why not?".  Unfortunately one of them had been set up specifically as a "scary jump" by my coach for another student. It was just a 12" high vertical with a piece of black corrugated pipe behind the ground line - but apparently this was SUPER scary.  On top of that, I got ahead and didn't use enough leg.  This resulted in me falling off at the foot of the jump, and Felix not wanting to go anywhere NEAR it. I was able to get him over a different jump a few times after the fall though.

I got back to the barn, told my coach I fell off, and she immediately knew why, and said "I was going to warn you, but didn't think you'd be stupid enough to try to jump on your first day home".  Clearly she underestimated just how stupid I can be sometimes! 

Today we had a lesson to fix it. First we set up a pole, and then a small jump in the same spot. Then we took down the jump and had him walk/trot over just the tube.  This was exciting, as my coach had to lead him over the tube a couple of times.  We left it off there though, as I was tired, and it was good progress.

It's hard when you know you have a keen little pony, it's tempting to just go have fun.  I've even seen people do this before (a friend of mine did it with an XC ditch years ago).  Yet, I didn't apparently LEARN from it!