I Don't Know Why.

Got to try out our new 5-point!

No. I don't. I don't know why it took me so long to talk about our cross country schooling a little over a week ago. Did I have a great time? Yes. Always. It's cross country for Pete's sake. It's the best.

Did I get to jump big jumps like I wanted to? No. Is that bad? Not really, because we worked on getting a safe distance into the jumps. And safe distances are important. And power is important. And me helping me horse is important.

Good pony. When I got tired or dizzy, I would just rest my head on the neck.

Apparently my riding style makes me horse fall apart at the base of the jump. She falls on her forehand and just kind of flails and then usually does a long spot and I sit there on her and I don't help her out any. I felt really dumb. I felt like I should be riding better than that by now.

Still warming up.

I was very happy with Bacon though (when am I not?) as I grabbed her out of her pen, loaded her up on the trailer, slapped some tack on her and warmed up while everyone else was ahead of us. This was the same facility as our very first derby and our very first cross country lesson the following weekend in June. In case you forgot, she was quite tense, and there was a lot of looking at all of the jumps and snorting.

Spider on the butt!

The horse I rode that Sunday was calm and cool. I hadn't ridden her for a week, it was chilly, and she was all professional and wonderful. She knows her job and the whole situation pretty well now. Like I said, we had quite a bit to work on. I watched the others in our group jump the fun jumps though, and I wanted to play too. But I know working on this boring but really important stuff now will make everything that much better.

Little jump, but right take off spot!

In the end, he put together a little course for us to do. As he was thinking about it, he turned and looked at this red coop. Beginner novice size. No big deal. He asked how I felt about it. Lindsey laughed, and I smiled a big smile and told him "I'll jump anything you let me jump". I don't think he knew what to do with that. So, we jumped a vertical, made a big loop left to over the blue barrel jump, a rollback to the right over a roll top and then I believe another turn to over the coop, but I might be missing a small log in there. It was a nice ride...except for my ride up to the blue barrel jump. I have no idea why I chose the path I did, because it was easily the most difficult one, but Bacon don't give no damns.

Nobody cares about blue barrels.

Over we went.

Or red coops.

And over the red coop we went. Piece of cake.

Baby roll top.

The trainer didn't know what to say, again. The words he found were "That was an interesting path to the barrels...but that horse will kind of just jump anything, won't she? Those are the funnest ones to have. Especially for cross country. You have an awesome horse."

Extra baby log.

Thanks pal, I already know that.  :)

Now let me jump that big stuff!

P.S. All photos taken by the wonderful taco lady, check out her new blog here!