Tuesday 14 August 2018

We Made It to the Other Side

I'm filling out my entry forms for the Spruce Meadows Masters. Because this happened:

Our first jumps!

And by jumps I mean higher than a trot pole, but small enough that Cisco didn't have to actually jump them. Just step over them at a trot.

He was a bit unsure, so a wee bit wobbly at the base, but we made it across to the other side every time. There was only one time that there was an actual "jump" effort, but I'm ok with that. We left point A and arrived at point B calmly and without too much fuss. Just what I hoped for.

Cisco is not an overly confident horse. So I'm going with the Denny Emerson method - super small jumps that they can step over, and keep things calm and quiet. We are nowhere near ready to canter into anything, but we can definitely start to trot over teeny tiny things. (If you don't follow Tamarack Hill Farm on Facebook, you really should. Denny has some wonderful words of wisdom from his decades of riding to share.)

Otherwise, the ride wasn't anything to write about. Except that we were 3 for 3 picking up the right lead canter, which has been a struggle for the last 3 or 4 rides.  I guess he heard that canter transitions are going to be the focus of our lesson on Tuesday night!

2 comments:

  1. aw look at him go!! what a good boy! that's basically the same thing we did with charlie to teach him to jump too - just endlessly trotting lots and lots of small things, and let him learn how to make all the mistakes and figure out where his legs were, and incidentally figure out the canter while he was at it. it's simple and it works!

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