I Smiled All Day

I realized after my last post that I hadn't provided much context outside of the fact that I was SUPER nervous about jumping.

While I don't keep a daily training journal here I did look back through some old posts and realized I actually haven't jumped Ellie since somewhere around mid-October. Why? A number of reasons really- work and work travel playing a huge role in the amount of saddle time I was getting. But beyond that we were going to battle in our flatwork on every ride. As we all know, with great flat comes great jumping. So it seemed a little counter intuitive to carry on over fences when we couldn't produce a nice collected trot or a flowing medium canter.

Since I've been home for now the third week straight I've been busy riding five times a week and noticing a huge difference in the strength of my leg. Having three private lessons a week certainly hasn't hurt us either and we've been able to achieve a lovely, collected trot. Cantering....well? It tends to be either bucking while she is trying to break to a trot or galloping at this point. She has my number in this gait but today when she bucked in order to break I spurred her on, rode like a cowgirl, and laughed about it. I take progress where I can get it.

Oh yes- and we jumped. Not a full course but 2'6" nonetheless. Actually just one trot fence (orange) and came around to the black at a canter. She was perfect and I felt great. So we called it quits there. And guess what? I'm excited to jump on Saturday!

I have been so enjoying my lessons, the progress we're making, and feeling accomplished!

Emma and Brook say they're 2'6" and I'm going to take them at their word here