Tiny Jomps

So I've been continuing to ride little Sunny, my mom's 14.2h (or so) pony. We skipped our potential western dressage schooling show this last weekend because of the smoke. It probably would have been fine but when the entries were due, we had no idea what was going to happen. 

I broke down this spring when I was desperately saddle shopping and bought a brockamp bareback pad. When I first got it, I was not toooo impressed, it just felt like a regular bareback pad. But then after riding in it, I got in my saddle (well, the demo saddle I gave back) and it felt insanely slippery. Then I realized that it's not just the cushioniness that makes that bareback pad amazing, I don't think I could fall off using it even if I tried. 

Dear, Sunny, that is not a challenge. Oh, TC would never. 

Look how excited he was to jump tiny jumps, also
wow he has lost weight, he was very chonky when
I started riding him

Anyway, my niece came out to ride with me a week and a half ago and I put her on the bareback pad in front of me and it was super comfortable. After that, I just started using it on him more than the western saddle. 

All last week and this weekend I played with the cavallettis that I talked about last week. I went from the circle of death to two outside lines set a forward 5/short 6 apart. We practiced cantering them and adjusting his step. 

On Friday, I decided to raise them because both TC and Sunny kept shifting the lines by knocking poles. That made it way harder for me to adjust him since I had to remember who moved what pole where. I just raised the inside side of the pole because there are only six cavalletti blocks and also I got tired of moving things around in the heat. 

Those are tennis shoes, yes

Sunny had SO MUCH FUN cantering over the poles. I had my pivo on and this helped me realize that my problem on Sunny has been that he's kind of underpowered over fences. That means he has to lurch over the jumps and when he gets to the other side, he figures he'll just keep bronc bucking. He's just an adorable little pony, so he needs a bit of speed to make up for his little legs?

I called Kate and chatted with her about it. It's also my tendency to underpower Flounder to the fences so I had to tell her that I was going to practice racing at all the jumps on Sunny. I can't believe she still wants to teach me after all of the obnoxious things I say about my return to jumping. 

That... IS a western bridle, you are very astute

I put up a little jump on Saturday and decided to try it out. We started with the world's tiniest cross rail and ended up with the world's second most tiny cross rail, but he was actually really good! 

My goal was to ride the lines in five and then turn to the fence, keeping the same pace. I also wanted Sunny to take me a bit more to the fence like Flounder does, so teaching him to come out of the corners powerfully to get over the line (the arena is like... ten Sunny strides long) really helped him stay powerful through the corner to the single fence. 

Yes... that is a dressage whip, we are a very confused
pair, okay??

We only jumped it a few times and I called it quits. I think today (or whenever, I don't know when this post is going to go out), I'll put up two other jumps, (remember, limited cavallettis here) and try to ride more of a course. I need more than one jump to not teach a horse to stop after jumps because I will absolutely stop 2-3 strides after landing if I can, I have no idea where that habit came from. 

Then hopefully we can haul over to Kate's barn fairly soon! I think she's got a jumping saddle that I can borrow.

Almost Back to Work

We are almost back to work now that the air has been good for the last four days! TC and I have been riding bareback in the bands this week doing all his postural work, including starting training the Spanish walk undersaddle. I'm hoping that if I get a decent Spanish walk on him, I'll be able to use that in warm up to loosen up his shoulders! Plus it gives us something to do. 

Yesterday, we trotted briefly and he didn't cough at all. Today I'll do the same thing and then he gets tomorrow off. He'll then do a light ride at walk, trot, and a little canter on Saturday and if he doesn't cough, I'll bring him back into full work next week. 

TC is the world's most bombproof horse, I'm sure
of it, he dragged me down the road to play with 
this fun toy

While TC has been walking, Sunny has been able to do more work. He definitely isn't as sensitive to the smoke given that TC had two coughs per walk for the first couple of days and Sunny hasn't coughed once. He's only 14.1 or so, his lungs are much smaller. 

Yesterday, Sunny and I changed up the poles in the arena. I was chatting with Kate about my jumping and she said that I will sometimes freeze 4 strides before the fences. She and I had a super interesting discussion about how that's super common and why she thinks it develops in (most) riders. So my goal is to work on that as much as possible while I'm still jumping relatively small (as the freezing only gets worse over larger fences). I notice that it happens mostly when I don't see a distance. And I noticed that happens mostly when I'm cantering a horse who I can't adjust easily. 

If you have ever wondered what TC's
tail looked like braided, wonder no more

Enter: Sunny, the world's least adjustable creature. He literally has one walk, one trot, and one canter. I've been working on changing his trot stride length to almost no avail, he really moves more like a baroque horse than a non-baroque horse. His little legs like to go very fast when I put my leg on, which is unhelpful in lengthening his trot stride or adjusting his canter stride over fences. 

I put out two lines on each side of the arena slightly in from the rail so I could go around them. They were both set at a comfortable five for him, which I did without measuring so I can't even tell you how long his step is. I just eyeballed it and then cantered him quietly through. 

Then I challenged him to get six and four at random. He was actually quite successful, but it was tough for him! To get the six, he was almost breaking and trying to go sideways to make the line longer. To get the four, he had to really bust his little butt to get down the line. It was really good though and reminded me of a lot of lessons from ten or fifteen years ago about how to adjust strides in lines. 

Considering biting my foot while we
are riding around bareback this week

He's having so much fun with the poles too! By the end of the ride, he was super energetic, which is unlike him. I figure I can kill two birds with one stone with the poles: get him more forward so he's more pleasant for me to ride and work on my jumping in between jumping lessons. 

Fingers crossed the air stays good through the weekend (and for the next several years if I'm crossing my fingers anyway) so that I can try the adjustability exercise on TC! I have a feeling he'll be a little easier to adjust.