An Eventful Lesson

Yesterday, I had my lesson with S, and I told her in advance that I wanted to "spend the first half on canter and then jump fun things!" Boy, did that come true... this is where I admit that I accidentally jumped a 2-foot oxer. The best part? Liz got video of the entire thing. It was a little bit terrifying, but at the same time, at least Limerick was a good boy and jumped it despite the fact that my reins were long gone and flapping in the wind! S and Liz thought it was hilarious (once they decided I wasn't emotionally scarred), and now I have no excuse to be afraid of a cross-rail or tiny baby vertical ever again! S said I actually managed to maintain my position really well, and they both joked with me that they thought I had decided to show off. Not quite... it was the biggest fence I've jumped in a very long time and my first ever oxer.

P.S. watch it with the sound on to get the full effect

Now, on to the rest of the lesson! First, G warmed him up for me and popped him over a cross rail a couple of times. I'm so glad she did, because the first couple of times, he pulled a reindeer and took off on the landing. At some point during this nonsense, he must have knocked his little pony brain back into place, because he promptly started jumping like a normal horse again. Then it was my turn! We started off trotting and making fun shapes around the ring, trying to keep Mr. Lims interested. The new full cheek helps a ton with maintaining contact, and adds an additional boost to my steering abilities... it's pretty fab :) Then we started working on cantering both directions. It's strange, but his transitions on his bad/weaker side are actually better than his transitions on his good side? This has nothing at all to do with me, because I definitely practice them more on his good side. It's kind of baffling to me. We got all of our leads tracking right, Limerick seems to have gotten over pulling on me (as long as he stays balanced), and I'm still working on fully sitting his canter. If you can't tell from videos, it's lovely but quite hard to sit because he's so big and has BIG movement.

 Next, we jumped the cross rail from the video multiple times both directions, making sure he didn't throw his head up before and gun it. S had me trot in, halt, grab the neck strap, and then ask him to go forward. It worked so well and he was much more responsive! He actually listens to vocal commands better than he sometimes listens to physical cues, probably because he's so big and my cues aren't always obvious enough for him to "hear" them. All of this was after our oops moment, which he luckily calmed down from really well! My scream did freak him out a little bit and we sort of galloped around the ring like crazy people after the video cut off, but I maintained my position (and my stirrups) well enough to get him back. The cross rail attempts after the oops were awesome, and Limerick was such a good boy!! For now, I'm going to use the neck strap every time I jump to prevent the reindeer from reappearing. I like having a horse, thank you very much! Also, that neck strap totally saved my ass over that oxer. I had no reins, but I just held onto that thing for dear life!! 

My preferred method of torture: crinkling peppermint wrappers to get him to put his ears forward, all while standing too far away for him to reach 

Trying to convince me that he's starved and neglected... didn't work

but PWEASEEEEEE MOMMY