A couple of blogs back I mentioned that I don't wear a body protector but I always wear a hat. Writing about it got me thinking about it and I've since updated my hat and ordered a Racesafe body protector as a collective birthday present to my ancient old bones.
So then I decided there's no point having all the safety gear unless you up your risk slightly, so I've started doing some jumping on Rodders. Phil stuck a couple of cross poles up in the arena and then we upped the height into some straight bars.
Rodney is the right colour for autumn :) |
He jumped big and clean and I very much enjoyed it, though (rider error) he stopped a couple of times near the end when he got tired. At that point we dropped the height a little, popped it once more and called it a day with a carrot, a cool off and a big pat.
After a few days of schooling and hacking I returned to jumping again and we did some smaller straight bars. Our first few times were a bit messy in terms of strides but we cleaned that up and I stopped after a couple of perfect tries, since I couldn't ask him for any more.
We're not jumping big jumps but we are having fun so I'll definitely pursue this some more as it's a good challenge and gets the adrenalin going. Other than that they are both looking well (Rodney too well ;)) and I am grateful for the ongoing good weather.
Phil's mum bought me a lovely warm riding jacket for my birthday but I've decided it's too nice for the yard so I just look at it hanging in the wardrobe every now and again. I've got plenty of trampy old clothes to ruin first ;)
Happy horsing everyone x
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