Wednesday, January 11, 2012

First post of 2012!

Yay, my 50th blog post! I know I've been terrible about updating but life has been hectic to say the least. Pop is doing great, however, and we had a really good jumping lesson today. It was his first time jumping in several weeks and he was quite excited about it. I felt like all the flat work we've been doing has really paid off over fences. He was jumping really well and I was giving him a good positive ride until we had to do a one-stride. Naturally I let him drift left, took my leg off and dropped his mouth. I get SO nervous for some reason and I just freeze. He also backed off just a little from it around the turn so I never had a good canter to begin with. Tried it again with the same result...but the next time was much better with the aid of a pole on the left side of the first fence to discourage drifting. He literally jumps the heck out of everything. It was fun, and C said it was a good first jump school of the year for us.

Next weekend is our first outing, a schooling combined test (at Training level) at the Horse Park. C will be in Ireland for several days so I will have a lot to work on by myself. I really want to fix how tense I get in the canter. It's so frustrating and just makes Pop tight in his back and stiff in his jaw.

BooBoo continues to recover well from tie-back surgery and is still handwalking each day. He is incredibly fresh and even though I try to get him out twice a day, it doesn't always happen. He is as handsome as ever though and can start back into work in a few weeks.

Bonita has been super, super good. I rode her last Tuesday and she was so nice and forward and quiet. I could move her off my leg and we even jumped a little bit, and she was very steady to the base of the fence and good on the landing. She is getting some time off because I was out of town all last week and this week is proving to be rainy and miserable so far, but hopefully tomorrow I can get out there and flat her a little bit.

That's basically it from this blogger. :) Hope you all had a Happy New Year's!

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