A Lovely Lesson . . .

This is more of a rant I guess. I took my second official lesson on Smokey today (well, since it’s technically Monday, yesterday) and he was so good we got our own little audience. Since everyone at the barn has some form of Thoroughbred-cross, watching a Percheron/Halflinger jump is VERY entertaining for them all.

I had some trouble bending him today - he kept bulging out and trying to cut his corners (such a little brat) - but I was more worried about jumping because that was what my lesson was based around. We started with a cross rail down the diagonal and eventually moved on to a line of two cross rails that took up five strides since we trotted in (and cantered through).

This eventually became a canter-in line (four strides). I’ve never cantered him up to a fence before, and he was lovely! He tended to pull a “launcher” which practically knocked me out of the saddle, but he slowed himself down before the second fence instead of charging forward. When I half-halted him right before the fence, he quickly learned to adjust his stride.. He took such good care of me, and seemed to be really happy about what he was doing. Did I mention I ended up adding in the diagonal cross-rail? I think that counts as a mini course!

  

I’m so excited to show him this summer! He and I are going to have so much fun together. I feel so confident on him. Some snow fell off the roof RIGHT as we were passing that part of the arena and he barely budged.