July 20, 2012 - Sanctioned jumping

So Rory turned four last week and we celebrated by giving him a week and a half off because he'd gone and gotten a bump/kick where the girth sits and the pressure of the girth made him buck (not that I blame him but... :rolleyes: ).  So back to work this week!  I rode my FOUR year old for the first time on Wednesday and he was very good. :grinwink:  I rode again yesterday and decided to start the jumping process (since he seems to think he should jump).

I set up a cavaletti in the planks that we have cantered several times and walked him through the first time.  He lifted each foot way up high to clear the rail.

Then we trotted in and he tripped over the cavaletti.

That's my little jumper!

We tried again at the trot and he managed to lift himself over it

Then we tried cantering and he got his front feet over just fine, but got a bit close behind and knocked the rail again

Rory tripped at the first plank and got a little discombobulated, but he didn't want to knock his legs again so he stretched over the cavaletti.

This one wasn't bad (apart from me jumping ahead. 

We changed direction and cantered it.  Rory had to stretch a little bit and he swapped leads, but managed it quite well.

This one was very good!  Rory kept a good rhythm, the lead and lifted his feet easily over the cavaletti.  I should have quit there.

We had a bad approach to this one and Rory jumped off to the left and banged his front toes (and I'm jumping ahead again).

Then Rory stumbled a bit on the leading plank and the jump was a bit ugly, but he was trying not to bang his toes.

This one was very good as well.  Rory just had a bit too long a stride and rolled the cavaletti a quarter turn with his last foot.

So we tried a trot approach again to see if he could figure out how to use the cavaletti as the transition to canter.  Not quite, but he did manage to canter away.

This time he got it!  Rory very neatly stepped into canter as he stepped over the cavaletti.

He did very well.  When he had a miss it didn't cause him any concern the next time we headed towards the cavaletti and he just tried to get himself over it as best he could.  The planks turned out to be a bit short for him, but most of the time he just adjusted his feet without issue.  I used planks because they don't roll under foot when he steps on them.

If you're wondering, yes that's my dressage saddle.  I'm still riding a hole shorter than normal because of my tailbone so jumping a cavaletti wasn't a problem when I didn't jump ahead.  My tail still hurts!  When they say tailbones take a long time - no kidding!