Jumping Bean (Sorta)

Monday morning I felt a little bad for TC, not getting to do anything but dressage for weeks. He doesn't care. He likes dressage. He likes wandering around the ranch to see his donkey friends and his cat friends and his horse friends. But I still felt like he needed to do something else.

TC was cleared to jump last year, but I decided against it because I was worried about it. He also was kind of a nut and I wasn't in the mood to jump a nut. Then this year I haven't jumped him mostly because I feel like he's so fragile and wanted to get him into the rated show ring first and foremost. But on Monday I wandered into the jumping arena and saw a bunch of poles out. Yay poles!

We may have taken the whole jump down a few times but in the
end it was great!

We warmed up and trotted/cantered over the poles. TC has gotten super good at cantering over poles now that he can actually lengthen/shorten his canter without struggling so much.  

There were two small cross rails set up in the arena. After playing over the poles, I decided to canter over one of them. And TC very neatly halted square in front of it. Because as far as he could tell, I had just stopped steering and ran him into this random object. I came around again in trot and we crashed over it. Hmmmm. 

Now, it's been a while since I jumped and all, but I'm pretty certain that TC needs to jump OVER the fence. I came around again and he finally did get to the other side, I kicked him forward and then praised him like he had just cleared a puissance jump. 

And then he was SO GOOD. We didn't do much, just trotted over the jumps with him starting to look for them and move up nicely to them without halting afterward. Then eventually we biffed again at the canter. I saw a distance and told him to take it, he was like "WOT" and ignored the fence to try to listen to me, then crashed through it. Sorry pony, I will let you learn to do your job. I know the best thing is to just let him figure out where his feet are but I'm a control freak dressage rider now. But after that, we got a good canter fence and ended there.

How chill is this horse now? 

It was so fun to jump him! I don't think we're very good at it, nor do I think he really liked it all that much. But it was a good way to do some cross training. I think that if he stays sound, it will be a good thing for him to learn to do, even just to be a better all around horse. 

He got his oatmeal bath, which he hates/loves because he wants to eat it, and a lot of cookies afterward. Then I had mild anxiety for the rest of the day worrying about his leg. That worry is just never going to go away. But I'm glad that I'm being brave enough to let him live a full life. When Rico got hurt, I kept him locked in (I mean he had a huge paddock) and wrapped and we didn't do any trail riding or jumping for a long time.

The next day his leg looked fine and he was sound on it yesterday, so fingers crossed that jumping is a thing we can do sometimes!