Back on task

Only a little over a week till the combined training at Tielcey Park - and I finally have my own horses back in work to take. Awesome! I'll also be picking up the ride on a friend's horse in some of the low showjumping classes which I am looking forward to.

Gem was really chilled out today - no pull and no argue. It was lots of fun. I popped her over a few crossbars first to remind her what is going on (since I jumped her when we first bought her, she hasn't been jumped again apart from an intro ODE with Mum). She seemed to remember what it's all about.

Her knees aren't quite as even as I would like - but she was so honest with everything asked of her. We even came in on a few tricky spots and she was happy to jump. I will put up a grid with crossrails at home to help even up those knees - but aside from that, she isn't nearly as green as you'd expect a showhack to be at jumping!

Kody is still really spooky (I need to start feeding him something for that, but keep forgetting! grr). But after the initial fright where he thought perhaps the pole was going to come to life and chase him around the arena... once he warmed up he was a real dude.

He's got a neat wee canter too. I think it might be worthwhile to do some showhunter on him - he doesn't rush or get excited at all so holds a nice consistant canter. I will spend some time putting him over low square oxers to try and encourage his head to come down (at the moment he is jumping in quite a tight frame, which is fine while the fences are low, but not something I really want to encourage).

Neo had almost forgotten how to jump - practically fell over a few crossrails! And being that he is only just picking up his fitness again he was not as athletic as I am accustomed to him being. The plus side of that was that he's super calm and unfussed by anything.

After taking him over a few fences around the arena I got Swifty to put up one of the oxers just to pop him over something a bit bigger. He was actually jumping it pretty well and we were meeting our strides nicely. He is such a cutie.

Coco came along for the drive but didn't do anything in the arena today. I just wanted her to get some more exposure to things. I am back out at the arena tomorrow to take some pics of a pony that is for sale - so may take Coco to go watch that too.