May 29, 2008

SuperStar Billie

Billie was also coming out for some jumping. She will be heading back to her owner soon, and looking for someone to ride/compete her - so I wanted to ensure that Billie was confident and happy in her jumping, and was ready to make her way around small courses.

We did a bit of a warmup on the flat, no spurs but instead using a dressage whip to help keep her from leaning on my inside leg. It is certainly improving her, and she seems to have a lot more energy with the changed feeding over this past week. After our warmup we did a couple of small singles to get our eye in and then started on bringing these together into a course. Billie coped really well. Some of the corners we came back to a trot and recomposed - but most of the time we were able to continue with even tightish corners at a good calm canter.


After going through some 'mock courses' I was really happy with the way she was jumping. We added in a few angles (which Billie was perfectly happy to do, though found it easier to pick her spot from a trot approach or a very collected canter) and even popped some of the jumps a bit higher than she's seen before - nothing was a worry and she just leapt over everything I faced her at. She'll be a really fun horse in those showjumping speed classes, especially with her small size which will give her an awesome advantage for the tight turns. Billie seems to absolutely love jumping:


I also got a short video of Billie over the smaller mock course early on:


Alfie had come along for the drive, but I decided not to work him - so just an outing for him. And practise for Pip at home being alone.

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