Cob Jockey

"Jesus take the wheeeeeeeeeellllllllll," I yelled as Connor absolutely bombed down the grid Mary had set up the weekend before. You could practically hear him yell "Cannonballlllllllllll!" right back as he ignored me completely and just Did The Thing. His way.

Thank you for flying Air Connor, shut up and hold on

Connor had more impulsion than either of us knew what to do with that day, so even though I was in a Dressage saddle and had my leathers Dressage-length, I sent him down the grid anyway. Homie needed to burn some energy, and he's schooled enough that I knew I could let that grid and the consequences of his choices do that for me.

Part of the reason, I think, that he had so much impulsion was that damn Wow saddle. I told myself I was buying a cheap old whatever for Disco, and even though it's not yet professionally adjusted to fit him, Connor has been telling me loud and clear he likes it.

The mirrors are really helping too. Nothing like coming down the long side, seeing that his nose is crooked, and fixing the hand that's preventing it from being straight.

It's got flaps down to my ankles and blocks that I should hate and might actually be 20 years old and is the old style tree so it weighs more than an anvil and I paid basically $800 for it, so of course he likes it better than the Patrick I spent the better part of 3 years trying to get.

Giving me the world's tiniest collected canter over trot poles and then using that power to jump me out of the tack.

Like, he's going ridiculously well and is happy doing it. He's doing better collected canter than he ever did when we were showing Dressage. The kind that makes me think maybe I could still get my bronze on him.

Not super collected here, but this is a crazy well-balanced left lead canter for this horse. And no underneck.

But I'm not putting that kind of pressure on us. In fact, the only pressure I might be putting on us is a speedbump-level event in November with the rest of my barnmates. He's really enjoying jumping, so why not?

Things that are lost in this GIF: me yelling "That's not how that's supposed to work!" as he cantered all of the ground poles and hit every single one.

We are just having fun. Both of us. And that feels good.

Finally did it sanely. No cannonball. Good boy.