Cob Jockey

I had the day off yesterday, so Mary came down for some extended pony time in which we rode both ponies, free jumped my barnmate's mare, and Annie rode both Connor and Zippy.

Dada even got in on the fun. And shortly after Mary turned them loose, he loped, on purpose lol (Zippy's a WP horse, so it's not as impressive as it sounds, but still). Mary was like "I haven't even cantered with Annie yet!" and then immediately had to get on and canter with Annie, haha. The Brockcamp bareback pad Kristen sold me is a perfect baby saddle!

Mary had been dying to jump Connor ever since he came home, although I know she's nervous about "messing up his Dressage training," even though I know she won't. I've been curious to see him over fences myself, since he learned leg + hand = put yourself together at Dressage boot camp. And when I came back in from putting Aeres away to her warming up like this:

Wowza

I said she could ride him like that anytime!

We had set up a line that we could push back against the wall for the free jumping exercise later, and built it up from ground poles. I had a "hmmm" moment early on, as Connor seemed engaged and relaxed - not words I normally describe him while jumping.

I'm sure some of you haven't been around for this entire saga, but I did fail him as an event horse because of his weird jumping motion (pointing his chest down at the ground in front of the fence, almost touching his nose to it and then often taking off from a standstill). 

Well...

Turns out learning to go around with his chest up and his abs and butt engaged may have been just what was missing in his jumping training. Even at this height it was obvious something big had changed about the way he approached jumps. And then when we put the sticks up a bit...

We both simultaneously started freaking out as soon as he finished this line. Side note, can we talk about how Mary hasn't been able to jump regularly in 10 years and her eq is STILL THIS GOOD?!

That was his FIRST TIME over that oxer and first time jumping anything that big in probably 3 years. We actually quit there. Mary was like "Jen! This is all I've ever wanted for you! It feels easy to him now, you could actually work on your eq on him for the first time."

CAN WE JUST. OMG. Is this really my horse?

And then as if my heart couldn't possibly be even happier after seeing that, we quit there (after only doing the line with the fences up 2 or 3 times because he was foot perfect through the entire thing), stripped his saddle, and let him cool out "over fences" with his favorite little jockey:

I was just smiling ear to ear taking this video. To have a horse with the ability to go as far as I want to in Dressage, that jumps an oxer like that, and then immediately turns around and takes such good care of a baby is worth so much to me. He really is my heart horse forever <3.