Week 33: Atop a Hill

After Horse Park Finn and I jumped right into some new training! I finally purchased a dressage saddle that I love and I took a lesson with Sally Cousins. To work on our jumping, my trainer had me cantering endless ground poles. The ground pole acts kind of like a jump and it gives horse and rider an opportunity to work on distances and things like that without constant concussion on the horses legs. At first Finn and I couldn’t get any of our distances and things seemed a little bit unorganized but after working on it he began to get better and better. After working with the ground pole and heading out to Flora Lea for a cross country schooling I was feeling great! Then came my lesson with Sally Cousins.

                The first two jumps of my Sally lesson were run outs. After convincing myself that I am capable of jumping the jumps and that I am a good enough rider to be doing this training project I put my heels down and went to work. Suddenly something clicked and it was perfect. Finn flew over ever jump I pointed him at and we jumped a variety of combinations and lines. After this lesson I was ready for the event!

                Finn and I did not have a very good dressage test. There was a green electric box in the corner of the dressage ring and Finn was terrified. We ended up getting a 47 on our test which was not exactly my idea of fantastic. However, we both got through it and at age 4, that should really be my only expectation for Finn. I hope to improve that score immensely by the time we get to Flora Lea for our first beginner novice event.

                Show jumping was pretty good other than one silly rail in a combination. Finn was very looky and that resulted in some effective but ugly jumps. The show jumping was set up on a hill and overall the course was pretty technical for an elementary course. However, by combining small jumps with technicality they made the course very hard to ride because none of the striding really worked.

                Cross Country was great! We had one stop at a scary jump but other than that Finn was great. He listened well and powered through the course like a great event horse would!