Jumping with Anne

Instead of riding in the show jumping clinic last weekend, I took a lesson with Anne on Monday (yay for no work on President's Day!). We started off with some work over ground poles-asking him to do different tasks on the approach (leg yeild to the rail, come to a halt and then move off with energy). Then Anne set up a ground pole course so we could work on steering. I really liked this exercise- I could feel Kwik focusing on me, waiting for direction, and this extra focus really allowed me to concentrate on maintaining the rhythm at the trot.




Our ground rail course


The next thing I knew, Anne had put the ground rails up to tiny verticals, and she sent us back through the course, ommiting the middle jump in the inside line. I wasn't quite sure how this would go, but he hopped right over everything on the first try, and for the most part, we were able to maintain a relatively steady trot rhythm into and out of each jump. He was pretty proud of himself after the last line, and it took a few victory laps to bring him back to the trot, but we did it!!!! Anne changed up the order, and we went back around.

I was grinning from ear to ear by the end of the lesson! This was Kwik's first time jumping at his new home and our very first course! He didn't refuse anything, and I think I gave him a pretty decent ride for the most part. Anne explained that we can improve our rhythm, focus, and steering for jumping just by doing flatwork over groud rail courses so we will start incorporating variations of that exercise into our flatwork.

I decided to do some work on the lunge line with side reins on Wednesday. Up until this point, I've been on the fence with regards to side rein effectiveness. The last thing I want Kwik to learn is to curl his neck away from contact, but he really seemed to respond well to them. I made sure to keep him moving forward with engergy, and by the end of our session, he was stretching down and out, reaching for contact. I don't want to do too much lunging, but I think work like this for 15 minutes once a week will really help him. Overall, good things happening! Happy Friday!