On Saturday I hired a local arena and jumps, put on my grippy-est pair of breeches and reached for my trusty neck strap!
Now that Dustry’s flat work has come on so far he can begin his jumping education in earnest. He really needs to learn to lower his neck, asses the fence and use his back and neck to bascule over the jump rather than hollow and leap! Previous attempts at jumping have been…..well…..interesting to say the least, at one point I was level with the top of the stands riding what resembled a giant jumping flea!!!! Not ideal!
I was half expecting some ‘balloon flea jumps’ but surprisingly he was very calm and collected. We warmed up outside and trotted over a few poles then went straight into the indoor to pop over the jumps. My handy helpers had set all the jumps to little cross poles so we just started popping them as and when, trotting around, and popping another. He didn’t even blink an eye at the different coloured poles or fillers at the sides. Sneakily my handy helpers then brought the fillers in to make some solid fences and he jumped them all without hesitation. He was a very brave boy!
After about 15 fences he was pretty pooped (more mentally than physically) so I called it a day, as I wanted to bank the good experience to help his jumping confidence. Onwards and upwards now hopefully in a nice bascule-y fashion 😉