Balance, bending, turns, canter from the hind end? It’s all starting to come together. Without trying to recap my entire lesson last night, all I can say is that I wish I had media. It was seriously a good lesson.

We started at the canter over “the pile of trash” in the middle of the ring. Basically it was a bunch of poles and a gate that was propped up at a 90* angle against the out of the outside line so that you could jump it as long as you prepared properly from the left lead. We did this on a canter circle and while I thought my trainer was insane (my thoughts most of this lesson), the jump wasn’t hard at all as bending, turning, listening to my leg, were all in Ranger’s plans last night. The only issue we started off with was finding the right amount of power at the base. I just needed to add leg/squeeze at the base as the canter I had coming in was fine (yellow line indicated on poor version of course below).

A really bad attempt to recreate the course… 

Next, we warmed up a figure eight over the straw bale jump (orange line) to the plain vertical (burgundy line) on the right lead. Of course, by this point, most of the fences were hiked up to 2’9″ which got in my head for a few minutes. I struggled with this even though this was the exercise I practiced almost exclusively last week. I saw my distances yet the first time, failed to commit and added. Then I committed, got the distance, then committed the same sin. It wasn’t so much that I lost my pace, but rather that I lost my line? And let Ranger drift in a touch which caused the chip. Once I fixed that, the line was fine.

Then, the insanity began.

Because my trainer is crazy, we started with the trash gate (yellow) roll back to the our green oxer (green line) around to the straw bales (orange line) this time jumped the opposite direction) bending line to the vertical (burgundy).

PERFECTION.

Holy crap. With the trash jump, we needed to turn before the in of the outside line which actually wasn’t a problem and the green was lovely. And the bending line was perfect. Ranger, on the other hand, has been SO BALANCED and on his hind end, that he through in a full change along the way. Seriously, this horse just keeps getting better and better.

We repeated this course one more time, adding in the blue outside line before calling it a night.

But, I can’t even describe how amazing this horse feels these days. I did mention riding someone else 1x a month because it’s probably good for me, but, I don’t want to stop with Ranger because I’m having so much fun right now…