Lola is going to make a fantastic jumper!

I've been taking the jumping training slow with Lola. I think that too many people push horses past what they physically and mentally can do in the beginning, and you end up discouraging and souring the horse before you even get started. So we've done as much as possible to build up her confidence and her athleticism by lunging and free jumping over plenty of poles, and low gymnastics. Tonight I made the best of the rain and free lunged in the small indoor and I was finally able to get some video of some of the stuff we've been up to over the last few months.



She's learned to trot through the trot poles...


She's learned to canter through a bounce, going left...


Going right...


And then building up one side of the bounce...


Then raising both sides...


Gotta do it both ways...


She's learned to see a one stride distance between fences.


Now she's learning to jump a little bigger...


Tonight was the first time she jumped a cross bar this size. The funny thing is that the center of the cross rail was no bigger than the caveletti, but she still over jumps everything, and you can see when you pause the video that she's actually jumping higher than the tops of the barrels! Silly girl... the jump really was less than 2ft, and she gave herself a whole foot of clearance!

I hopped on her bareback again for just 10-15 minutes of walking around doing our bending and circles and stretching her nose out and down. I think she had a blast tonight!