Annie has been waving back and forth between being a good horse and being a spooky balky squirty horse, often in the same ride. I do kind of like that Annie is feeling comfortable enough with me to show me her true feelings, but I did kind of like blah pokey Annie from last year who was too depressed and worried under saddle to think about being bad.
On Thursday I was able to get a jumping lesson in with Rachel. I noticed right off the bad that pokey pony was not anywhere in sight, and the issues I've been having again with our right lead canter making it around the scary door seemed to be non existent with Aunty Rachel setting up fences while we flatted. We decided to do course work and after we warmed up Rachel added "scary" things under the fences. We had a liverpool made out of a green indoor/outdoor carpet that also serves as a rolltop, a bucket under part of a one stride, and the mounting block under the out of the one stride. One of the things Rachel mentioned was to "flat" in between the fences. Ask her for more of a connection and contact, and make sure that she's bent in the right direction.
We also had a swedish oxer thing. Sometimes Annie gets quick and flat and leaves from further away then she should so at the end of the lesson we set up an exercise for Annie. Since it was our Swedish oxer now not only bigger but also WIDE and with two canter poles leading up to it this was also a Sabrina exercise, not that Rachel mentioned it!
Annie ended up doing really well and after I started grabbing chunks of mane I did well too! Annie was certainly having some fun over the oxer finally putting in a little bit of effort. You can't see it in the picture, but the oxer is 2 feet wide which might be nothing to some people but was something to me.
I also let Rachel know that I am comfortable with her raising the fences behind my back after I've warmed up over them! We also discussed my goals.
Entering Leg Up at Starter in July would be fantastic, that will be my "big" show for the season. I initially wanted to do Dan Hobyn at BN in May because I could always bypass anything out of my element but sadly Dan Hobyn (who changed their name to School of horse Engineering after a management change) is not doing any shows. They've been a fixture in the community for decades and are a great friendly place to show at so I hope they come back in the future.
I'd love to make the HT's at Come Again Farms but I think that Cathy is out of town for both of them so that's a bummer.
I would like to be jumping BN on Annie by summer, and I'd really love to do Novice. Definitely not Novice XC this year but I think I can handle Novice stadium.
Maybe I can enter Leg Up at BN but I'd probably have a stroke if I did so we'll see!
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