Truthful Tuesday

 

This one is meaty and I have no media so bear with me... I'll break things up with old photos, promise! Soooo... This weekend Nona Garson was at the boarding barn doing clinics all day. Most people did both days, but they are two hour sessions which just seems like a lot to me, so I opted to just do one day with Shiny. 

We'll see what the Olympian thinks about... this pony. Lol!

Going in, I wasn't sure how she'd do with the long session. We generally ride for about 30 minutes a day, and that includes our walk portions. I probably should work on lengthening our rides... We arrived at the boarding barn last Wednesday, and the few days I had ridden there, she was a little tense. She never put a foot wrong, but she hadn't been the relaxed pony I have at home most days. Which honestly, might have been good since when she's relaxed it can be pretty tough to get her moving. 

We drew the short straw apparently and were scheduled for the 7:30 am session on Saturday. I was not excited given the forecast. 31 degrees at the start. Ugh. Brr. Fortunately, the outdoor was frozen so we were inside. That helped a little. I got on early to get Shiny moving. I was quite sure no clinician would be impressed by the Shiny Shuffle, so I made sure to get that out of the way before we started our session. 

I was SUPER proud of Shiny during the flat portion. We have spent all summer working on our flatwork and I think it's really paid off. Nona started us off nice and easy with loose reins, some half seat, etc. She really likes to let the horses stretch and move how they wish before putting them together for harder work. I also like that. She doesn't have us canter before before putting the trot together which isn't my preference, but since I had already moved Shiny around (including some light canter) prior to starting, it was fine. She had us do some leg yields what I call the easy way, from the quarter line to the rail. Shiny really only figured out lateral work about a month ago, so I felt really proud when Nona said Shiny performed the best with that exercise. Proud mom moment for sure!

The jumping part started out fine. Shiny hadn't jumped at the boarding barn yet this year, and while she's generally very honest to the jumps, she can get a little peaky when they're new or have shadows on them. Which just results in her jumping a little up and down instead of across the first time. But she was very good. Nona starts the jumping off just as easily and slowly and the flatwork which I really like. We start with one thing (in this case trotting a cross rail) and then just add something on with each turn. So everything builds up slowly. I like that. Setting up for success. 

So we trotted an X a few times each way, and then added another single and an outside line. The line was a slightly short 4 for horses (which is common for being in a small indoor. Horses naturally want to shorten their step a little in a smaller space, so we set the fences accordingly). So for Shiny we planned to do the five. I was surprised when we got down there and barely had room for the last step. My bad. I usually am pretty good about knowing where I am in a line, but the jump out was a little high for us, and we hadn't jumped it yet, so I think I was more focused on keeping her in front of my leg and over did it. It was fine though, she popped right over despite the chip. 

Everything was really going pretty well until it wasn't anymore. For the last course, our first jump which had been the crossrail was raised to a vertical and it was 2'6" with a square rail. If you've been reading along here for any length of time, you know that we have only just started toying with the 2'6" and is really a bit out of our comfort zone. The out of the line was also 2'6" though, and things had been going fine, so I didn't speak up. I thought it would be okay. It was not, in fact, okay. Shiny cantered up to it and said no thank you. I re-approached and if I'm being really honest here (which is always my policy) I let her stop again. I cantered up to it, but was not assertive. I didn't really want to jump it either... I asked if we could put it down a hole, which Nona did, and then I got tough and got her over, I continued on to the diagonal line which the in was also at 2'6", but Shiny locked on, and I felt like we were going to be fine, but she quit again. We put that down as well, and then she finished the course. It wasn't pretty, but she jumped everything else, even if they were a little three legged some of the time. Unfortunately, that was our last course as time was up, but honestly Shiny was very tired, so I'm not sure I would have wanted to ask for more anyway.

I was feeling pretty shitty about how things went at the end there. Not because we had trouble, and I in no way think my pony was a bad girl. I am feeling shitty because I don't think I did my job as her human properly that day. I knew those jumps were big for where she is right now, and I knew that we had already been on a LONG time. I should have spoken up that the jumps were too big. Shiny wasn't trying to be bad (she never stopped dirty, she always kept her head up and kept me safely on her back). I just worry that now she's learned how to apply the breaks, which isn't something we've really dealt with. She has stopped once or twice in the past at something particularly spooky the first time. But never more than once. I really think she was just too tired and it was a little too hard. And it was my job to say something. 

She doesn't seem any worse for the wear in general. I flatted her lightly Sunday and she was her usual self, so I guess we'll see this week. I'm going to find a little kid lesson to join, just little crossrails or 18" verticals, and see how confident she's feeling. I'm sure we'll both be fine, but I'm really disappointed in myself for not being her advocate. I got caught up in the moment and got a little greedy. I feel like it's the same thing that happened with Eros with putting the jumps up to 2'9" and then he was lame. Both issues could have been avoided if I was a little bit better of a human in those moments. Hopefully I've learned my lessons, without doing too much damage to my poor pony.