I've been holding off writing a new post for a few days, because there's only been one thing on my mind, and I didn't want to jinx it. Jake, selling. But now that the contract is signed and the trailer is coming tomorrow, I think I can come out with it. It's such a strange feeling. I'm so glad I was able to sell him for his owner, and was so happy at first. But today, I had my last ride on him.
And he was soooooooo good :( What a nice horse. His new owners are so incredibly lucky to be getting such a nice, talented and well mannered horse. It's not very often (like, almost never), that I choose to go back to my dressage roots, but Jake honestly made me think about becoming a serious dressage rider again. I am so looking forward to following his progress with his new owner this summer at the shows. And I hope I can hold it together tomorrow and not shed any tears when he leaves.
On a happy note, FLORA IS AMAZING!!! I don't ride my young horses very often, but today was the first time I've ridden her two days in a row. She is such a princess, that I thought she was going to be really mad, but she was a-mazing. She was willingly bending in both directions, and, for a horse who is normally very fussy in the mouth, was sooo soft and quite consistent in the mouth. It made me think there was hope after all ;)
I decided to do, or at least attempt, a small exercise that I did with all the babies at Looking Back Farm. All it is, is a 9' rail in front of a cross rail, with five strides to the next fence- a small cross rail or vertical. Trot in, canter out. Of course, Flora had never done more than one pole in a row, so we first had to get her used to trotting over poles that were 9' apart. No problem. It was like she'd done it a million times before. Then we had a 9' rail set to a crossrail, with just a pole on the ground 5 canter strides away. Again no problem, except Flora believes in using as little energy as possible, and therefore did not canter away from the cross rail even once. She didn't even bother actually jumping the cross rail after going over it a couple times, apparently it wasn't big enough to bother.
So then we put the pole on the ground that was five strides away up to a small, very small vertical. It was the first time Flora had even faced a vertical, and she took it like a pro.... even though she hit it down about five times in a row. Her stride is, apparently, larger than I thought. In my opinion, when a horse is learning to jump lines, they shouldn't need to also think about the striding. They're too busy thinking about where to put their feet as it is, so we moved the jumps out until it was a perfect five stride for her. Then she loped down the line (I had to canter into the exercise so that I could canter down through it! Normally I'd be against it, as I think cantering in too early might make a horse rush the fence. Not in Flora's case, though.) in five perfect strides, and left the jump up. It felt like a pretty cute jump! So we left it at that.
That's the fun thing about babies: small accomplishments. I mean, only with a baby would you be ecstatic to hit down the same jump five times in a row. Seriously. I started to get a little disheartened, but then, it's only her first time going down a line, and the distance wasn't great until the end. Might call for some free jumping to let her figure out her feet on her own. Again, I don't think free jumping is for all horses, but judging by the way Flora has been taking all this new jumping stuff in, she will be fine. In fact, I was cantering down the long side on her in our warm up, and she actually veered off the track to canter over the pole!! I'd say it's a good thing :) I can't wait to do more with her.
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