Jump Jump

After a week of dressage rides, albeit really good dressage rides, it was finally time to return to some jumping.

dressage rides with silly hats on...

I contemplated putting Bobby's ever-changing hunter outfit on to try out a slow twist snaffle this time around since he gave a big old NOPE to the pelham when I tried it last week, but with a week off from jumping, no ride yesterday, and being generally super fucking insanely fit, I wanted the comfort of our usual tack.

So on went the Micklem and running martingale, and I set up a very non-hunter fake corner and a 3' vertical to warm up over on the diagonal.

well....at least his mane is nice and tidy?
he's so unattractive.

As is becoming the norm with Mr Grown Up Pony Britches, his warm up was very correct and super nice to ride. There's a fancy horse hidden beneath that fugly brown wrapper. I shortened my stirrups up two holes to jump, got my fat rubber reins nice and short, and had a small moment of rejoicing in how much more I like my eventing tack than the hunter tack, instead of taking a small moment to freak out about starting to jump.

See? Trying hunters is already working, and we haven't even been in a show ring yet!

It makes sense in my head. Don't judge.

Bobby was definitely on fire right from the get-go, so I channeled his exuberance into a more packaged but still very forward canter, and all our jumps were bang fucking on. We did both jumps twice from each direction, and we didn't get a bad spot once. I was sitting up and pushing forward, and Bobby was uphill and bouncy and just generally a boss.

one sloppy outdoor

We finished on that note because you can't get much better than perfect--and I was about to choke to death on all the dust in the ring--and hacked up to the outdoor to see how the melting was going. There was almost no snow left on it (yay!), but we're supposed to get 3" tomorrow, so it doesn't even matter (boo!).

I made Bobby trot around a little anyway. He poked his nose out to the ground and amused himself by splashing water onto his face as we went along. Event horses have to get their cross country fix however they can, even if it means creating your own imaginary water jump.

I also popped him over the single barrel once just because, and he hopped right over it without so much as a blink.

Basically he was a very good jump jump horse today, and finished off half a bag of peppermints accordingly.