Rock Star Status

The title of this post obviously refers to Limerick, who was beyond fantabulous today! I'm not gonna lie, the last time we went XC schooling, he flipped his shit when other horses got to jump before him, proceeded to refuse a starter coop with my trainer onboard, and kind of made me question whether or not I'd ever be able to handle him (this was in August, maybe 3 weeks after I got him). As you can imagine, I was nervous and went in expecting the worst, which is why I was so pleasantly surprised when everything WAY surpassed my expectations :)

We started out watching Collyn and Frankie go around the training/prelim course for at least an hour, calmly standing and filming them the whole time and taking a minute to splash in the water. Let me just say that C+F are total badasses and I want to be them someday! Limerick started out ok, though a little bit nervous and insecure when Frankie wasn't in sight, but he calmed down as soon as we turned to watch them go or walked around a little bit to get out his jitters.

Then, Limerick and Frankie trotted/raced back to the starter course, and it was our turn to have fun :) S started the lesson by having us hack around the field, doing some trot and canter work. We had to canter downhill, which made me more nervous than anything else we did, but is SO much easier when I just lean back! We moved on to jumping one starter fence at a time, slowly moving around the field and occasionally jumping the middle fence. We jumped a little log, to a brown coop, to a white coop, to a black coop, to a stone wall, to a little wood jump with three poles, to barrels, to tires! I think I got all of those in the right order...

None of them presented any real problems, though some of them elicited bigger jumps from Limerick than others. There were also a few that he tried to get his head down afterwards, and I don't really know what that was about, but I'll chalk it up to a little bit of back soreness. He's getting adjusted on either Monday or Wednesday of this week, so YAY for that! I also got to use my new cooler today, and I highly recommend it! It's a weatherbeeta and actually does what it's supposed to do, as in doesn't make Limmers sweat more!

The day could not have gone better and was such a good first experience for Limerick and me :) He got a whole bucket of Nicker Doodles and lots of love, as well as some liniment on his legs and turn out when we got home. I can't wait to go schooling again and can't thank S, E, G, and Collyn enough!

Here's the video: (sorry it's mostly unedited, I suck at iMovie..)

Some pictures:

The cooler! Kind of weird, but super effective and the first one I've ever used that doesn't cause him to get hotter

Gorgeous ending to a gorgeous and perfect day :) 

Dressage Lesson and Jump School!

Yesterday, I had a good lesson with G to work on our dressage. My main goal was to figure out why exactly Limerick has started running around like a freight train with his jaw locked, and we were somewhat successful. I discovered that the second I pick up even a light contact, he throws his head straight up in the air... okeedoke. So I started working with what he was giving me instead of against it, and basically rode around for the rest of the time on the buckle! From then on, the lesson was really good and I rode in Collyn's dressage saddle, which means my abs burn today. Such a satisfying feeling :)

Today, Collyn and I hacked around in the field with Kimmie on foot (Jazz is still lame), which was a nice and relaxing end to a stressful school week. We went through multiple gorgeous fields behind CVF, trotted and cantered some, and took bunches of pictures! Then, Collyn gave me a mini mini jump lesson in the ring, which I have videos of! I worked a lot on trying to keep my body more upright before, over, and after fences, which is hard and something that I have to think about a lot to make it happen. You'll see in one of the videos that I'm so upright in midair that I get pulled down on landing... Kinda awkward to ride and I definitely learned my lesson afterwards! Lims and I felt very in-sync, he was forward and awesome, and we only had to do the course once because it went so well the first time :)

Things to look forward to:

1. XC schooling tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With S and Collyn
2. Lesson with S on Sunday

The Dressage test I want to start learning

Weird silhouette of Collyn and Frank