November 16th, 2012

Today was my last ride before my Thanksgiving break, and thankfully my trainer was there so I could finally have my jump school.

Warmed Libby up, which took a bit longer since it was FREEZING (low 50’s ugh), and she felt good.  She was very focused on everything but me, the golf cart, the horse the groom was grazing, but I got her attention back to me and after that she went well.  Thanks to the cold, she was a bit more responsive then she had been the day before which was good for me.

Started off trotting the cross rail back and forth, which Libby does like a pro now, and then moved right on to cantering our little course.  Red brick, to wall, to line, to blue.   And since I’m a little bored right now, I drew everything out for you!!! I know I’m not an artist, and my courses were by no means so crazy, but I had time so why not!

Work of art I know…

After our first course, Libby was getting a bit strong, which was kind of expected.  We hadn’t done any actual course, cantering them since last week.  We were trying to get the real numbers in the line which is a forward five.  I guess I’m still not quite comfortable yet with her real numbers stride, because I felt like we were booking it.  I felt like I was going to eat it up everytime, so I’d always ask her to wait, but a second too late, causing her to get a 5 3/4.  Not very pretty.  We ended up trotting in and cantering out a couple times, and then trotting in trotting out just for Libbys brains sake.  Then we moved onto our next course, which was a bit eq-y. 

Brick to lattice, around the blue to the in of the line backwards, to the wall, another rollback to the crossrail, and halt on a straight line. 

Second course.

For being as thick and heavy as Libby can be, she is surprisingly quick off her feet for the turns.  We got every distance spot on, and I was so proud of her.  She was lugging on my hands still though, so I quickly got off fixed my curb a little tighter, and fixed my saddle which had slipped back for whatever reason.  This time she was much lighter in the hands, and much more maneuverable, so we ended on that.

Good girl with her cooler 🙂

Overall my ride was great, and Libby got lots of cookies, especially since I won’t be there.  She gets clipped tomorrow so I’m looking forward to see how she does.  Also, the B/O was telling me that the hock boots seem to be doing more harm then good on her sores, so we did a little experiment and I left them off yesterday.  I’ll call tomorrow to see how they look if theres any difference.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!