Today after weeks of plans getting rained off, we went for a long overdue lesson! Dustry had helpfully thrown himself into the wettest muddiest part of his field just seconds before I arrived to get him ready. With only 30 mins to spare and him looking like ‘the creature from the mud lagoon’ I resorted to hosing his legs off and brushing the worst off his head, but it definitely wasn’t our most polished turn out!
For once the weather was glorious, still, bright, and not too cold. We worked on bringing his shoulders more ‘up’ in the trot so that he can load more weight on his hind quarters, and also sharpening up his canter transitions which had got a bit lazy as a result of the lack of training over the Xmas period. Then we began to jump some small fences. Dustry jumped so calmly and quietly it was a real treat. I think finally the penny has now dropped for him with regards to jumping, yippee. We then progressed to a small spread approaching in trot and canter. The canter needs to have more forwards flexibility, at the moment it can be collected but not extended quite as well.
He is such a brave and straight forward little horse because the fences were not built up so he could get used to them, he just had to go in ‘cold’ and they were made with poles and a few jump blocks placed inside the spread, and it even had my gilet and his quarter sheet draped over one side of the spread (on purpose as a distraction) and he didn’t even blink! I have a good feeling about his future as an eventer with a brave attitude like that 🙂
