Little jumps for a little bit

We're continuing with the "jumping what we can find theory". I'm also trying another saddle to see if that helps my "not so helpful" equitation. Still trying to get used to it.

Last weekend Lola was over at my parent's for a pony sleepover after trail riding on Saturday. So before I hauled her home on Sunday I used their pasture to ride around and jump some little logs. Fun to have the chance to jump over such little non threatening things out in the open. Not fun to have her so uber-concerned with where Bear was! Ho-hum...

We worked on a little log with one stride combo. I put it close together because I wanted to trot in, have a small jump, a collected stride, and a small jump... more like canter poles than anything. Like this...

Of course we only got that after several times trotting through, and she even managed to make it a bound once though! Silly mare. She is clearly pretty adjustable for a shorter horse.

We also did some hill trots with a little log pile. She really could use some more hill conditioning, so I think we'll work on getting out to the trails more often.

As you can see in the video she was raring to go, but did stop nicely after. So I made an effort to jump again week after I had a really good ride. I couldn't find the poles, so I kept with the idea of jumping what I could find, and we jumped the cones and the jump blocks instead!

From Drop Box

I started with the blocks flat, then popped them up on their sides to be something to actually jump. I figure if we do lots of this low easy stuff at home, she will think its easy and no big deal and just relax, and I will still be working on my position and thinking its no big deal and just relax!