Jump? what jump??

[cwb]

Warming Tetley up as usual - nice active walk and Hayley says "which side does he prefer?", so I did a 20 metre circle on each rein and he felt easier on the right rein - got that one correct! It looks like I am going to be getting a mini quiz each lesson now to test and develop my feeling for the horse's movement.

Then we did some trotting - he is much bouncier in trot than Cleo, she drags her feet, but Tetley picks his up so you get a nice crisp trot which is easy enough to rise to but I was all over the place when it came to sit to ask for the canter.:confused: This, together with his untidy transition, made getting canter far more difficult than with Cleo. He is also quite different in the school on his own compared with last Friday when there were 6 other horses in there - he was listening much better on Friday.

Once in canter he is also much more difficult to keep going - without a horse in front to chase after, he really needs the whip and fairly hefty nudges to keep up canter round the corners :mad:- he really is stiff (Hayley says he has planks of wood down his sides!) and has a big turning circle so the ends of the school are taken in more of a 20 metre circle rather than using the corners. His canter is also choppier than Cleo's big rocking horse, so I was bouncing a bit until I could get used to it.:eek:

Hayley shortened my stirrups again - I tend to ride with my legs behind the girth with long stirrups, the short stirrups help to pull my legs forward onto the girth and I am starting to feel more secure with the short stirrups - she wants me to use short stirrups all the time now.

More trotting - over poles now - and because Tetley picks his feet up anyway the poles feel no different to the rest of his trot so I have a good balance throughout whereas Cleo's trot picked up over the poles, upsetting my balance. Then we cantered over the poles, or at least that was the idea, Tetley had other ideas and decided that HE was alpha horse today, :rolleyes: so between me growling at him and using the whip and Hayley growling at him we had a sort of trot/canter/trot/buck/canter progress around the school which made my balance absolutely hopeless, :mad: it felt like the first canter on Cleo! I guess I will get used to it in time.

Mostly we got a canter by time we got to the poles - the first time over with them flat on the ground was OK, the second time over with one of them raised was a bit hairy as Tetley decided to slow almost to walk imediately after and I was hanging onto his neck! :eek: The third & forth times over with one raised were much better as I sat back more to the movement and we still had canter into the turn at the end of the school. Same again on the other rein and I was starting to feel more secure but not completely happy. Tetley is not a very balanced horse and I was working hard to keep us both balanced - not always very successfully!

I have now got used to not even glancing at the poles on the approach - I look round the corner at C or A straight down to a point on the banking above the school fence and keep focussed on that, so I simply thought the next run over the poles was a bit more unbalanced than before and I was getting quite annoyed with myself. Then when I looked at the poles on the return down the other side I saw that Hayley had rearranged them into a little cross pole jump!! :eek: Not that Tetley actually made a big deal out of it, his canter is quite capable of going over the foot or so of the middle of the crossed poles - it just got a bit more vertical movement.

So overall a rather difficult lesson in balance. Hayley said that there was nothing more to learn in terms of balance on Cleo so she now wants me to ride other horses instead of her - tomorrow morning there is an empty WTC group lesson with Hayley and I have booked Hovis who I haven't ridden before.

Sorry - no decent video today as the sun decided to come out from behind the clouds and shone straight into the lens - I'll have to find somewhere the other end of the school ( the scary end) to hide it in future!

[Rebecca1969]

Congrats on jumping your crossrail. My RI did the same thing with the crossrail. First it was the poles and then I come around a 3rd time and see a tiny x jump without any warning:eek:. It was fun though and luckily I had no time to panic and remembered to look straight ahead. Well I'm sure after riding unbalanced Tetley and doing well, your next ride jumping on more balanced horse will be amazing. Have fun on your new horse tomorrow. I love my RS horse Apache, he's like a security blanket to me which isn't always good. I did ride a harder horse in the beginning and then she said I was ready for Apache who is just so easy and forward. I won't complain though, I'm really enjoying myself. With all the horses you'll be riding you'll be very well rounded rider.

[vonandiz]

I'm not convinced that the idea of doing something new doesn't add to the unbalanced factor. The first time my RI suggested we jump a few cross poles I felt so wobbly that I said I didn't even want to attempt it.

It will be interesting to find out how you feel on Hovis. Are you going to see how you find Hovis and then decide if its Hovis or Tetley for your next private lesson?

Do you think you learnt much today? I find that I tend to learn as much (if not more) from a 'bad' lesson as I do from a good one. Its just that I don't realise it until a few days/weeks later.

Congratulations on your first jump anyway. I suspect I'll see a post soon about higher jumps and mini courses given your rate of progression.:)

(BTW I love your horses names Tetley and Hovis :D)

[cwb]

Actually I think I learnt more from yesterday than previous lessons which seemed to go well - it is just more exhausting, mentally and physically. As I start to ride more actively, rather than being a passenger, life gets more complicated!

Today's group WTC lesson was just me on Hovis and was one of my freebies in return for helping out so I was even more pleased that it went a fair way to redress yesterday's "reality check" lesson on Tetley when I wondered if I was ever going to get the hang of all this. :confused:

First thing that Hayley said was that he was a lazy horse and I was going to have to work hard! :mad: He obviously thought he was going on a lazy ride round the fields as he tried to turn the wrong way out of the yard and then dragged his feet all the way to the school.

Active walk also doesn't seem to figure in his vocabulary, so I did lots of walk halt, walk trot, trot halt, etc with him to get him listening - he was actually quite good at this - especially the halt, clearly his favourite pace!! :)

He has the slowest trot I have come across, so I was able to trot slowly round the corners but to get a fast trot meant lots of nudges and the whip. He isn't too fond of canter either! On the first asking we got a lurch that almost had me out of the saddle and my first expletive on horseback! :eek: I seriously started to question why i was doing this!! Once I had him cantering, he needed lots of growling, nudging and using the whip to keep him going.

Circles in canter were even harder work but easier on the right rein compared to the left, I think we did 3 circles on the left rein in trot before he would go into canter. We ended the lesson with some quite nice canters going large so I did come out of the lesson feeling positive that I can ride new and "difficult" horses and it does get better each time after the feeling that I have gone back to the beginning!

After Hayley yelling "heel down" at me for most of yesterday's lesson I wanted to work on that today and also to try to keep the stirrup on the ball of my foot more. I managed this much better today although the left one slipped back to the heel a few times. I also worked on getting my toes in more to lighten the leg on his side and he felt more forward going when I did this. Hayley said my leg position was much better, so that was good. Poor Hovis ended the lesson gently steaming from the sweat and my legs were a little achey so I think we both had a bit of a workout.

[Meovcorz]

Wow sounds like yoiu are doing well, yes I know it probably doesn't feel like it. But getting use to different horses and how they work and think is interesting, and usefull.

CWB, I think you would now find it hard to ride on a horse who wants to go and doesn't want to stop! Amazing I know, but it is totally different and hard to get use to, I went through that, with my horse he just wants to go all the time, meanwhile the horse I use to ride didn't care if it was fast or slow. ( he was pretty hard to get into a canter though - would just trot faster and faster :rolleyes:)

[cwb]

Trouble is, I don't have anything to measure progress by - so it is difficult to tell whether I am progressing - I just have to trust my RI that she knows what she is doing. It certainly feels like she is stretching my skills every lesson, as soon as I accomplish something she makes it more difficult.

Cleo is like that - wants to go - and yes it is hard work to keep her down to the pace we should be going - given half a chance she would just go faster and faster, I have had her motorbiking round at canter in the inside school and almost feeling dizzy!!! I am sure that she would go full out gallop if she wasn't restrained!!!!!

[Meovcorz]

Oh sorry hadn't rrealised Cleo was like that, well I would say definitely get some experience on those types, it helps if you can handle that kinda thing for bolting horses are even harder - believe me I own one. :) :D.

Have fun and Good luck.

I know how it feels when you feel like you are goinig no where. I like to look back at how I was when I very first started riding and think forwards till the current spot I am at, that really helps me to see how much i have accomplished.

How long have you been riding? And how often do you ride?

[cwb]

Oh - I usually have fun!! The lessons go soooo fast!

I have had 12 private 3/4 hr lessons and 14 group 1/2 hr lessons over 16 weeks - that's an average of an hour per week.

I can usually get Cleo to do just about anything that she can, I can canter Tetley over a little X jump and I haven't fallen off yet - so I guess I am doing quite well for a 59 year old :cool:

[Meovcorz]

So are you saying that you have only been riding for 16 weeks! Your doing well if that is the case.

Good luck.