Today was a jumping day.  Planned out.  We are gonna jump 4’3″.  A set of fences, all singles, all verticals.  Looking for soft, quiet, steady.

Josh and I got in the ring and set out where the fences were going to go.  4 verticals, three diagnols and a straight fence.  Plus a warm up X.  I left to go tack up while Josh finished setting fences.

Frankie seemed happy to see me.  A little bored in the pasture.  Tacked him up, he didn’t act girthy today which I was happy about.  I put the pelham on.

We got to the ring to see Josh set up the fences all pretty!  I got on and Frank took a look at the jumps.  Sometimes I swear he knows that when the jumps are up, its a fun day.  I warmed up at the walk for about 5 minutes.  Then hacked for about 15.  He was lazy!  The trot was pathetic and it was a lot of work to get him out of a four beat canter.  He is often like that on jump days.  He seems like he knows he doesn’t have to work that hard on the flat, and he is happy about it.

So, trotted the X a few times.  He was quiet and good.  Just put the X to a small verticle.  We cantered that back and forth.  Quiet, maybe a little too lazy.  We cantered back and forth, Josh raising the fence 1 or 2 holes every few good passes.  The fence got up to 4’5″ and I wanted a tad more canter.  He gave it to me AND added nicely to the base of the fence.  Cantering off smoothly.  We walked for a minute and off I went to hit the 4 verticles.  He was perfect.  I would say loose rein, but it wasn’t loose, he just wasn’t pulling.  Quiet in, quiet out, adding to the base.  He was such a good boy.

I stayed quiet, soft.  But, riding with a looser and softer leg proved to be difficult AND ugly.  My leg was way back without much weight in the heal over the fences.  He jumped me out of the saddle a bit on two of the fences too, felt his withers in my chest.

Good boy Frank!