Ok, now for the tale of my inability to get my brain to shut up:
Poor Lucy. I don't know what my problem is but I had another tough ride today. It was not Lucy's fault. Kenny put some jumps up and immediately I started getting nervous. We warmed up over low fences (crossrails and 2') and we had no problems at all. As soon as the jumps went up to 2'6"+, I spent the entire approach to the jump a) starting at the base of it and b) silently freaking out. We jumped everything but I had a minor meltdown after she refused a fence (because I pulled her to the base of it, AND I was staring at the ground). Every ounce of me was subconsciously screaming "STOP!" and so that's exactly what she did, and then I lost my confidence. She has done NOTHING wrong and I am really alarmed at myself. We ended up with a very small vertical just to end on a good note, and then we went on a long hack where we had a really lovely, long canter along a section of the trail that is very straight and flat.
My plan is to jump only very tiny tiny jumps for a few weeks. Nothing big, no complex lines, no oxers, etc. I will stick with this height until I am bored out of my skull, then put everything up one hole. I always appreciate Kenny's help setting up jumps for me, but he tends to start them quite high right off the bat, and when they go up, they go up by 2 or 3 holes at a time. I also plan to go on lots of trail rides and really enjoy myself.
Anyway, here are some photos from today:
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| playing with the small bank jump :) |
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| and back up into the ring |
