Splish Splash

Hillary and I decided to have some fun today and went down the trail! There's a creek at the end, and we had tried to go down there before but it had always been too steep or muddy, but today it was dry enough for us to go down into the water. Limmers went down the rocky bank like an old pro, and these shenanigans resulted:

Someone had a little too much fun

Spooking at a rock... not one of his finer moments 

Huer photo bombing

Pefection, Part II

IT'S HERE!!! My dressage saddle finally came in today and it's awesome :) It seems to fit Limerick well and is very comfy. I didn't get to have an extensive ride in it because I had a jump lesson beforehand, but I think it might just work for us! Here are some pictures of it on Limerick's back, please let me know what you think: 

Like I said, I also had a jump lesson with S at Gail's farm. I didn't know what to expect going in because last time we lessoned there, Limerick was crazy. That was in our reindeer phase where his back was really bothering him, but I had yet to figure out what the heck was going on. Needless to say, he was 100x better today and quite the gentleman :) We started out with a warm-up of a small cross rail, which was quickly moved up to a 2-ish foot vertical, which we trotted back and forth over. He was good, so we upped the ante and slowly increased to a full-blown course. 

He was awesome, even with little kids screaming at the neighbor's house and dogs running around. Combine that with G's rather ghetto jumps, and he was practically a saint. No refusals or run outs, the worst he did was bring back the reindeer move, which I got hilarious video of this time!! If you watch nothing else, please at least watch Limerick's sweet reindeer skillz, they are too funny. He whipped them out for a rather innocuous little white vertical, which just so happened to have a horse eating flower box underneath, clearly worthy of clearing by three extra feet (he easily jumped the height of the standards). Today was my first time riding and experiencing the reindeer for myself, and I actually laughed out loud at how it feels... 

Well, at least we know the boy can jump... 

LOL

Other than that absurdity, the lesson was luckily uneventful. He did do some serious peaking at some of the other scarier jumps (black barrels, green gate, blue vertical), but he was never dirty and jumped everything, even with some less than decisive riding on my part. What a good guy!!

The video:

And some more screenshots: 

SO CUTEEEEE

Lesson With S!

I had the most fabulous lesson EVER with S today :)!!! It was my first lesson in over a month because of France/bad timing/etc. and I was super excited to get some professional help with the problems I've had lately. We started out doing flat work and she was pretty adamant about how much she likes the three-ring for us, which is awesome because I really like it too! It's officially our jumping bit, while the boucher will be reserved for dressage. Only time will tell whether or not the three-ring will work for XC, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Anywho, S was thrilled with how much we've progressed since she last saw us (early December) and was extremely pleased with our canter work especially. We did maybe 5 minutes of trot and canter both ways on a circle, then moved on to jumping back and forth over a baby cross-rail. Limerick was good, though the teensiest bit distracted, which causes him to drift =/

However, today really drove home how important it is to ride to the jump and really get Limerick going in a forward trot. The more energy and impulsion we have, the smoother the whole thing feels and the easier it is for me to ride his jump. Then S added another cross-rail on a diagonal from the first one, which we also did without any problems, other than the drifting. Lim even landed in canter a few times and we cantered on to the next jump without any meltdowns on my part! I really do like cantering jumps and I think I'm finally starting to chill out about the idea, but when I first started, my heart pounded out of my chest and I was a giant ball of nerves.

Next, we made a course of a cross-rail -> cross-rail oxer ->  2-foot vertical -> big cross-rail -> outside line of 2 cross-rails, which went really well when I remembered not to let Limerick putter out in front of the jumps! The lesson was awesome, Limerick jumped the best he's ever jumped (thank you, Rood and Riddle), and I felt like we were really in sync with each other :) For smaller details and to watch parts of the lesson, here's the video that my awesome-possum friends took!

Finally, here are some pictures from the day: 

FAVORITE 

P.S. A special thanks to the bestie for coming to visit me this weekend, taking pictures and videos, and just generally being amazing <3