With all the shows on my theoretical calendar, I've been looking for a place to school cross country. While Moe has seen most types of jumps and will happily go over them, both of us are pretty rusty.
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| "Whatever, lady, I am not rusty. I am perfect." |
I cornered the barn manager over the weekend and asked his permission to use things around the property to set up an XC course. Things I am now approved to move and use as I see fit include a picnic table, a wooden bench, and any downed logs. He also agreed to trim up the fallen tree so I can jump the sections of it that aren't 4'6.
Moe put in good work over the weekend. His walk and trot are forward and supple, and his canter improves with every ride. I couldn't resist a little bit of jumping at the end of our rides.
That's part of the pasture fence. The bowed rail is about waist height on me, so it's around 2'9-2'11, I'd guess. The footing is excellent on both sides, and this section of the pasture is secluded enough that the other horses won't see what we're doing and rush over.
Moe jumped it with ease, although our distances are inconsistent. We've always had a bad habit of just taking long distances; it's a direct result of rushing fences. We hit a perfect distance about a quarter of the time. We had a lot of long spots as well as a couple of nasty short ones. More cross-country jumping will have to take a backseat to gymnastic work, at least for a while. Sigh.
3 comments:
I feel the same way at my barn. I rarely see other boarders at the barn. I find it very strange, but it also gets me some quiet time with the pony.
Not such a bad thing to have barn to oneself, I tend to ride "late" at night when most people are gone home as traffic during "peak" hours at our yard are diabolical. Saturday mornings & any weekday between 4-6pm forget about finding a spot to do ANYTHING!
Great that you found such a sweet fence to hop over, looks class. Your eye for distances will come back with more practice I'm sure :)
I wish that I could look at a real fence and just.. jump it. That would scare the crap out of me. Though, when I'm driving or being the passenger, I like to look at signs and stuff on the side of the road and envision the best approach. Very fox hunter-y!
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