I Made the Two Stride My Bitch

But I still HATE them!

This is how we feel about the jumper ring and 2 strides.

I wish there was a show last weekend. Not because I rode particularly well. I didn’t. But because my horse seemed to be loving life.

He started out slow and behind my leg in the warm up before our lesson but then turned it on when G got started.

I went back to working on the figure 8 for warm up and threw in some counter flex. I’m still having trouble with my damn hip so I avoided cantering the figure 8 and biffing lead changes.

After we warmed up we headed up to the jumper ring (ugh). G had us start out by cantering a circle to the right over a small cross rail and then to the left over a low vertical. This is where Tucker found his energy reserves and decided things were more fun. We jumped the jump 3 times in each direction, hitting a good distance each time. On landing Tuck felt like he was hunting for the next fence. Every time we’d pass a fence that we weren’t jumping he’d try to lock onto it.

“What’s next mom???”

I love when he’s like that. It’s my confirmation that he’s enjoying his job.

I’m still not getting all the lead changes (damn hip!) and G says don’t push it. BUT don’t let him do single trot stride to change it either. If I’m going to trot to change the lead make him trot and then pick up the correct lead. Also I need to make sure that I’m still asking him to bend properly and not cut in.

From there we moved onto the fan exercise. At both end of the ring there was a cross rail, poll, cross rail set on bounce strides. The first time through I stared at the ground for to long and end up only going over the first cross rail. Oops! The second time through I almost did the same thing but fought to get over the whole exercise. It wasn’t pretty but we made it. From there I sort my shit out and didn’t have any more issues.

G said to solve any problems going through the fan by putting on leg and raising your eye.

G had us move on to courses that incorporated the fan exercise. This is where I grew a pair and also failed miserably. Ok maybe not that miserably. But I have got to stop leaning forward and losing connection on the last stride or so before a jump. It’s so not good!

BUT we still made it through the 2 stride in 2 strides on the first go. YES!!!! Ok yes we knocked down the rail on the out but we made it. That goes back to the whole stay connected so he doesn’t get flat. So no big deal… except that I can’t seem to stop dropping him so…

The second time through the 2 stride I thought that I was up and connected but we still rubbed the rail. G said that I was still leaning forward and releasing the contact on the last stride. UGH!!! But we still made it through in 2 strides. So I’ll call the lesson mostly a success.

Take Away: STAY CONNECTED!!! Stay up. Leg on. EYES UP!!!