We’re back in the lesson routine…

A still from the video of the trainer taking her through some of the "bigger" jumps,
but seriously Lola is jumping it like it was a house instead of 2 foot.

So I updated the summer, by September we were getting back into a groove.

We have a very talented eventing trainer in the area, and I’ve been hoping to take a lesson to try her out for over a year and a half. So while Lola was still living at my parents (a little vacation after Santa Barbara before heading back to boarding) we were much closer to the trainer and we went out for a jumping lesson. I’ve done about as much as I’m comfortable doing on my own. Lots of poles, cavelettis, grids, and low cross rails courses. I’ve basically been trotting up to everything and then cantering though the grids so she learns to jump from the base and stay relaxed. So for our very first lesson Lola calmly trotted up to the cross rail, picked up her feet and landed trotting away. The trainer laughed that Lola didn’t seem very impressed. I told that had been my goal. Easy peasy.

So she pushed us to jump a little higher x’s and some oxers, she had us cantering away and mixing things up a bit with some cantering around the arena. Then she got on to try her out and we popped the fences up a little higher to see if we could wake her up. The great thing about this is that I can work up to where I’m comfortable, and then the trainer can push her a little farther. I like this idea A LOT!

For the second lesson I dragged my boyfriend out to video. I was really pleased with the lesson considering Lola and I are both out of shape after about a month off. There is plenty of room for improvement in my jumping, but I could at least pick out some things to be happy about. Then when the trainer got on I was pleased with Lola’s willingness to keep going even though she was tired and this was more physically and mentally than I had ever asked of her. At the end, I was beat, she was beat, but I think we both felt pretty stinking proud of ourselves.

We did some canter poles...




Then we started with the easy cross bar with a pole down to help her with distance.




Then that got bumped up to a vertical...







And finally we tried an oxer! YIKES!
1st attempt is a little wiggly



Second go is a little better.

That was about the end of my comfort level since my legs were screaming from all the canter over poles... You can see I'm getting tossed about like a rag doll in these last two. But in my defense, she's jumping it big, and she's still jumping it a little awkwardly. When I freeze the frame it shows how much she's clearing the rails by!


So we did a different sort of pushing the comfort level. We cantered while approaching the cross bar! She was great.



Now if I could just keep this up at home we'd be jumping courses at shows in no time. But sadly time has been scarce and money for lessons is almost non existent. So we're taking it slowly. We've jumped twice since then very successfully, but we also kept it to 18 inches! I figure I better not push my luck. We'll jump real jumps while the trainer watches. We'll jump little fun things to keep our minds and bodies fresh in the mean time.