The Lightbulb Has Clicked!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Saturday morning at the barn was the usual craziness. Got there early and cleaned the Pony's stall first thing. The kids started to arrive so I tacked up Kaye and warmed her up for them. Walk, trot and canter, she never put a foot out of place. We worked through our laterals, and she was just really good for me. Ari got on her then for a lesson. I ended up riding Miss later in the afternoon with Astrid/Mickey and Katie/True. We warmed up on the flat and then started through some cavalettis. After a while Bonnie set up a small vertical for us. After we jumped that a few times She added a second fence to do a one stride in and out. Miss's first combination in almost a year! And then we did the first fence to the offset vertical. Go Baby Girl! So now I'm definitely thinking that Miss needs to go to South Farm in May.

And then off course I rode X-tra before I went home as well. Little snot was not to happy about standing around tacked up while I rode Miss. Of well, he needs to learn to deal with that. He wasn't too bad for me. Very fussy with his head though. Not really sure what that was all about.

Sunday morning I picked up Joni and she came out to do a photo shoot. She was using Kaye and I as models for her final project for class at the Pittsburgh Art Institute. Now Bonnie had set up some new fences in the arena on Saturday. Like so:


The fences down the center are all one stride apart and then one stride from the third fence to each of the offset fences. The diagonal triple going across the arena was set up to be one stride as well.

So we start out over just a single fence, do pretty well with that. Then Bonnie has me jump the in and out. Eventually we work up to the diagonal triple. Kaye got a little too excited going through the diagonal triple heading towards the front of the arena. And she almost jumped me out of the saddle. Absolutely hilarious photo. The look on my face is completely just 'Oh shit!'

So Monday I had taken the day off to go to Blair's grandma's funeral in the afternoon. Of course the morning meant a trip to the barn. I tacked Kaye up for an early lesson. And that's when the light bulb clicked! The day before Bonnie had been after me to pick my hands up over fences. I really focused on getting my hands up off Kaye's neck, and everything else just fell into place. I was sitting deeper in the saddle, my leg was much more secure. Overall I just felt much more secure. And the best part was that I wasn't scared as Bonnie put the fences up. I had control after the fence, I was able to make tight turns to jump the offset fences. It was pretty amazing. By the time we finished we had the verticals up to 2'8" and the two offset oxers were 2'11"


0 comments: