We Bounce, We Trounce, We Pounce...It's What Bacons Do!

Just so beautiful.

I have been doing a couple of jump schools a week with the Baconator. Some have been ok. They usually would start out pretty rough with her, as she would be rushing the fence and landing abruptly and I would get bummed because I couldn't figure out what I could do to help her figure it out.

I felt my position failing me, as well as her. Finally, we would have a few good jumps and then I would call it a day. And really guys, I don't know crap about jumping. So, I decided to try a placing pole in front of the jump. Again, she would be rushing the jump and her legs going everywhere. I would notice after the jump that I stared at it the whole time and would hold my breath and I am sure that didn't help her any.

Day one of placing pole.

So today, we started with a good lunge session getting her feet moving and paying attention to me. Got some good rollbacks out of her and got her to relax before we went back to saddle up. Another issue we have been having is getting her to listen to my seat and relax. When we do our downward transitions, she doesn't relax or want to stay "down". After fussing, I will realize that I AGAIN was not helping her, and tensing up and bracing waiting for her to pick up the pace again.

Ready to rock and roll.

So starting goal was to work on downward transitions and RELAXING my ass and hands and breathing. And guess what? That worked pretty damn good. We worked on halting square. That was good. We worked on bending in our circles, and that was also damn good. My handsome boy came out to photograph and we started our jump school.

Success!!!

And that also went pretty damn good. Actually, really damn good. It seems as though the placing pole is really helping her to pay attention to her feet and helping her slow down now. Blake snagged some good photos, but the best ones were blurry. She thought her jumps, and I tried to relax and look forward instead of at the jump. It felt so good to have such a nice ride with jumps involved. Needless to say, the pony got a crap ton of carrots. And lots of love.

And ended with a great vertical.

And I may or may not have entered us for our first event derby EVER. My nerves. They are everywhere. I. CAN'T.