Today was a cross country lesson! Whooo hooo!
She did walk away from me when I went to catch her but she felt great under saddle, so... I don't know. We got on early enough that I was able to do a 30 minute warm up hack in the woods, trying to stay in the shade. When we got to the cross country field to warm up, she was actually pretty good. I even braved a canter! And... it was civil. Whoo hooo.
The jumps were set up for some terrain questions so we played with that! We warmed up trotting fences up and down the hill. Going up the hill was normal but going down the hill, I had to ride with my thighs a little to help balance her. She was good though. And we managed to stay balanced and land without falling on our faces. Yay! Of course we didn't actually really trot the fences. We kind of sort of tried. I was giggling because it was like a fly ball dog! She was quiet and still, but then when it was her turn... the slingshot got released! Off like a rocket! But she really was trying to listen and behave. And it got better the longer we rode.
We played over a bunch and Jacel even sent us over some bigger fences! I swear one or two of them were training level! Ha. Probably not, but they were definitely novice. We did have a near disaster when she didn't listen to my half halt (I need to remember to alternate and not just haul on both reins) and she got a bad distance to a big roll top and it felt like she almost rotated over it. But she was catty enough and kept herself upright. After that, she listened a little better (or maybe I rode a little more effectively) and we had a nice jump over. Then I lost my phone! But luckily I found it at the base of the jump. The pants pocket is not quite strong enough for jumping and cantering apparently! Thank goodness we didn't squish it.
Then we went to the water and Jacel had us canter the roll top, then through the water, then up the up bank. That roll top was big! But Funny was like "whatevs" and just rolled on through. She was so brave we did it again for video purposes and as she was nearing the bank out of the water, she felt like she stepped in a hole. Her one front leg just disappeared beneath her and she almost faceplanted in the water. Unfortunately it was about a stride away from the bank! Somehow she managed to get herself up, pick us both up and take a big flyer to the up bank and cleared it. Well, she hung a hind leg a little bit, to which she took great offense. But holy cow... way to save our bacon Fun! I thought for sure we were going to chest the bank or something. (It's not that big of a bank, but big enough that it scared the tar out of me!).
Then we carried on and did some other jumps, including the bigger up bank! And then Jacel was like... do this, to that, to the sharkstooth. Eeeks! I asked if I could show it to her first and Jacel was like "No". I replied with "because she's not going to care about it....okay". And she didn't. She leapt over it like it was nothing. SOOOO much fun!
We had a blast! She's really getting fun on cross country!
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