Speed Bumps

I finally got my ducks in a row, and took a babysitter (Pony Grandma) out to the barn with me so that I could school Cisco over some jumps.

And by jumps I mean itty bitty crosspoles.

Bigger than this one though!

Since I hadn't jumped Cisco since our last attempt a couple of months ago when I fell off him for the first time and we had to break it right back down to a pole on the ground, getting over itty bitty crosspoles was the goal for the day.

This is what happened last time. 

When I first got on him, I wasn't sure if this was going to be a good day for working over little jumps. He was a bit up - it was quite windy out, and something was flapping in the scary end of the arena, making the end even scarier than normal. The pigeons were being super noisy and flappy. And Cisco was in the arena by himself, which always means he's a bit more forward than normal.

But hey, my jumps were set up, and I had someone with me. Must make the most of it!

We started over the tiniest crosspole I could make - really just a raised trot pole. I had chosen the standards that had the holes that went the lowest, so the cups were maybe about 4" off the ground. I had just set up two singles on each quarter line. The plan was mostly to jump them coming out of the scary end. He sucks back a bit if we are heading into it, and I didn't want to make getting over the jump more difficult at this point.

Cisco was a very good boy. We trotted over each jump a couple of times before bumping it up a notch and I think we ended up on the 4th hole from the bottom. The middle of the crosspole was probably a whole 10" high, but considering how the last session went, I was really happy with him. He hit one of the rails pretty hard with his front feet one time, and I was a bit worried that it would really back him off, but he brushed it off and kept going with no issues.

Not the best pic from a cell phone video, but you get the idea!

The only time that I didn't feel that he took me to the jump was after one of the birds had made a bunch of flapping noises and we were jumping into that end. I felt him hesitate slightly a few strides out, I put my leg on, and he carried on. He trotted over the jump instead of actually jumping it, but that didn't worry me.

Overall, I was very pleased with the ride. I'll try to do another couple of sessions like this before I really up anything. Hopefully I can do it within the next week or so and not wait for a couple of months again!