Cob Jockey

After yesterday's downer, how about a good post?

First of all, (this is both a good and bad thing...) he's finally started shedding in earnest!

I felt like I was trying to erase his blaze.

Second, we jumped on Thursday for the first time since December, and it went really well!  It's clear that we need to do more of it, and it's not because he was bad at it, but because it improved his way of going at the canter from beginning to end, and also because he really enjoyed it.

She started out with five trot poles in a row, which then became pole -> crossrail -> four more poles, which eventually became pole -> crossrail -> pole -> crossrail -> pole -> crossrail, all one strides.  Summarized, here's how it went:

- She was impressed with his body awareness and understanding that the poles meant he had to think about his body in relation to the fences.  Specifically, she liked how he knew to fit his body in a smaller space instead of going through all strung out.
- She loved his jump and said he's got tons of scope.
- She liked how the jumps improved his canter.  There were plenty of times that he landed on the wrong lead, but there were also several times that he landed on the correct one and we were able to keep going.  The quality of the canter that we got after the fences was immensely better than his usual canter.
- He's careful, and not spooky at all - completely shocking, since he spooks at fences when he is just walking past them.
- For my part, asking me to think of each fence as an individual fence instead of an exercise helped me sit up more.  Also, she had me shorten my stirrups two holes from my Dressage length, where they've been since January, and OH MY GOSH that's different.  If it wasn't for my other hobby , I probably would have been cripplingly sore after that...but even still it was an interesting switch at first.

I think we've got a jumper on our hands, folks.  Now if he'll just start liking Dressage more...