I Jumped a Course!

First time ever. Definitely deserves a title exclamation point.

So Monday night was lesson night and I dressed Gem in her jump gear. Trainer was right on board with attempting a course before we hit the show, so we began with some flat work focusing on the canter then began to jump. Nothing super earth shattering and limited photos, but I had a lot of fun and built up some major confidence.

We started by just going over a simple cross rail. The first time Gem slammed on the breaks and just walked over the cross rail, but she went over and never stopped so there was that. The next time I actually put my leg on and she popped over and cantered away. After that we strung fences together.

Jump 1 was this brown cross rail with pink flowers. I hesitated, got all nervous and took my leg off. Gem stopped. Not surprising and not her fault. If I’m not 100% committed to the jump, she will not go over.

Trainer told me that I have to go into it with the mentality of getting over the jump no matter what. I don’t tend to stare at the jump, but I do tend to lose all confidence and back off right before it so she told me to have the mentality that I want to go to x and there just happens to be a jump in the way. Gem does not over jump at all and will not go bolting away so really the only issue is me and my brain.

 

From there we circled at the far end of the arena to approach jump 2, my first ever vertical. It rode fine as long as I got Gem looking at it in advance and we popped over no problem.

Trainer told me that Gem has no clue what is coming and is not yet looking ahead for jumps. She is green and it will come with time, but for now I need to give her the longest approach possible so she sees it. She thinks most of our jumping issues comes from Gem not thinking we are going to jump so she is always surprised at the last minute when we get to it.

The vertical led right to this Red Cross (so my phone keeps capitalizing it as if I’m talking about the American Red Cross and I am tired of trying to correct it so you get this version) rail with flower filler. It was actually really great because it made me get Gem back to a trot quickly and set back up for the jump.

I didn’t get a picture of the next cross rail but this line was the mirror image of the vertical to Red Cross rail only. By this time Gem was actually beginning to catch on to the game and was looking for the jumps.

Trainer was really happy by this point. She said that Gem actually started to look ahead here and she saw her prepare two strides out for the first time. On my end, I noticed that Gem’s ears actually pointed towards the jump and not back towards me. This also resulted in her balancing a couple of strides out which in turn made the jump smooth and much easier to ride.

After the cross rail we turned left down the far end of the arena again and ended with these two jumps. I majorly failed the first time and Gem ran out at the last minute. It would have been our second refusal if it had been a show.

We came at it again and it went fine.

We repeated the course a second time and I actually rode it and Gem did great. I gave her a big huge and pat and was grinning from ear to ear. My first course!!

I’m not sure why I get so freaked out jumping. Gem doesn’t over jump at all and she never bolts away from it either. I’m just not 100% comfortable with it though I really want to be. With time I’m sure it will get better. I’m actually not a particularly brave person at all, but I don’t let fear completely stop me from doing what I want. It just makes me really conservative.

Doing an entire course was really good for me too. I had to focus on my approach and bringing Gem back down to a trot right away, so I couldn’t stop riding after a jump nor could I focus on what went wrong.

At the end, we wandered over to the dressage court so I could run through the test quickly in a small court to see how quickly things come up. That’s when Trainer said that she could tell Gem was having fun once she understood the game we were playing. That makes me really happy to hear.