At first, I had myself convinced we were supposed to have a theory lesson today. Then I discovered that no, we were jumping this week and next. Great, I thought, since next Thursday is the dressage and jumping competition I signed up for. Getting a chance to get some extra jumping practice in (though, to be honest, I probably need to practice the dressage more ;P), especially if I could manage to get Murphy, sounded like a good idea.
Unfortunately, Murphy wasn’t doing lessons at all this week. Instead, he’s got the week off for further education with the instructors. They do that now and then with the horses, to get a chance to polish up their training. Good idea, bad timing for me. I really hope he’ll be doing lessons as normal next week and that he will be available for the competition. Our instructor thought so, but she wasn’t certain. However, if I do end up getting him for the competition, she’ll try to place me on him for next Tuesday at least. I am also considering squeezing in a private lesson on Monday or Wednesday, but that will make it a very busy week.
So, who did I ride today? Well, choices are limited when it comes to jumping now that Nelson doesn’t take more than 55 kg at the moment, so I ended up on Fleur. Fortunately, it was too windy to ride outside as she had planned, since Fleur no doubt would have been totally ditzy and spooky in the paddock. As it was, she was just forward enough to give me enough energy to work with but not more than I could handle
The goal of the lesson was to focus on rhythm, so we started working on that during the warm-up. We ended up cantering rather more than we usually do for warm-ups, and she wanted us to find a nice, rolling rhythm that we could stay at for a very long time without interfering too much with the horses. I remembered to focus on finding a way of holding a two-point seat for a long while without tiring my legs by absorbing the energy of the gallop in the right way through my knees and through my feet. It worked quite well.
I also managed to get Fleur to actually put some work into her canter (I could tell she put more effort in, because her tongue ended up hanging out on one side, as it seems to do when she tries a bit harder than normal), though while I worked on rounding and collecting her canter from a two-point I ended up lowering my hands too much. I need to work in being able to do that while still keeping my hands at the right position.
Once we moved onto the actual jumping, everything flowed pretty smoothly. Fleur has a very short, pony-like canter, and my instructor was pleased that I didn’t end up trying to hurry her along just because it felt as if she wasn’t covering enough ground. Its a problem I do run into at times, but today it worked well to just hold my position and let her mind her own business. At one point, she misjudged the distance a bit and ended up having to squeeze in a very short stride, but I managed to stay in the correct position even though I had essentially started jumping already and was able to just give her more rein and let her sort it out. So, that was pretty good.
Since the jumping competition will be judged on style, I ended up asking afterwards what I need to focus on. My instructor said that my main issue today was that I didn’t ride the stretch following on after an obstacle decisively enough. It needs to be my decision when to ride straight ahead afterwards and when to turn. And with Murphy, if I end up getting him, that will certainly take some effort. If I get Fleur instead (she’s one of the choices I put on my list), my main problem will be my nerves, since we’ll be jumping outside and I know she can get very unpredictable, the sweet little pea-brain.