After kind of a crappy week all around, my luck started changing on Thursday and I had an excellent weekend both hanging out with my mom and spending some time with Simon pants.

On Thursday, I ran out to the barn at lunch to check my gimpy creature. He looked nearly 100%, so we decided to turn out. Saturday when I had more time I inspected the area on his heel that had been hot and puffy. It was noticeably cooler and I saw a little broken area of skin. He was also very sound on the lunge line, so I think the abscess burst and life is good again!

Since my Mom was out there Saturday, I asked her to get some video. We did a pretty simple ride – after a quick warmup did some bending in trot circles. It started off a little stiff:

But after some more circles I got some pretty moments from him.

It’s funny actually, his worse way all year has been tracking left. Lately in flat work boot camp mode he’s actually been going better to the left. I guess hard work pays off?

If you love trot work or enjoying paint dry, you can see our circles in this video:

Then because my horse who had a week off was being so fabulous… I did the obvious thing and jumped some logs. Now I hardly EVER jump outside of lessons, and this is why.

We figured out how to do it after a few false starts, and then I told Simon that he was the best pony and called it a day.

So flash forward to my lesson on Sunday – more fun jumping logs in the field! I was tickled when my trainer moved us out there for our lesson instead of the dirt ring. I was even more tickled during the warm up, when my horse felt fantastic. He didn’t blow up as much during transitions as he usually does, and when I asked him to bend and be soft he was very willing.

He was also really happy to be jumping around in the grass I think. We carried a little more pace at times and I was able to see my distances without as many fuck ups as normal. I won’t bore you with lots of details, but I’ll share the course we ended on and what made me so excited!

What’s that blue star you ask? Well, it was a CLEAN LEAD CHANGE! That’s right folks – a 2013 goal checked off the list! My trainer said since it was a strange corner that we don’t usually ride in, he didn’t pull any of his leaning/diving bad habits. Plus as you can see from the diagram, that’s a pretty tight rollback. I didn’t think he’d do so I was just sitting up tall when I got this pretty lead change. Hopefully this means more to come in the future as I continue to work on our flat work and improve my riding.

Also, the last jump of that course is a GIANT log. Okay, it’s not giant but it’s a solid 2’6″ -2’9″ log and by the time we ended our last course I wasn’t scared of it. We cantered right up and it was no big deal! Now I leave you with a little spam of Simon and I playing hunter derby 🙂

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