Triple Threat

FLOWERS. GROWING OUTSIDE. Be still my heart! 

Wednesday afternoon's ride was much more relaxed than Tuesday's!

We just had a quick review of "this is how we go sideways," cantered around a little, and then got to the fun stuff, since the pony definitely needed a jump day after a hardcore dressage ride.

I warmed him up over a little crossrail a few times, and even though I intended for it to be a trot fence, Dino was much more eager to get rolling and took me to it in a nice, balanced, appropriate canter. How nice!

After switching over to jumping mode, we trotted into this bad boy:

Yes, that is a three-fence bounce grid you see there. And it was awesome. I was a little nervous about adding the third fence in, since Dino has in the past reacted poorly to being faced with that many poles in a row. But homeboy totally attacked it, and I actually got slapped in the butt with the back of my saddle he jumped so round and hard. We alternated trips through the grid with cantering the single crossrail and a 2'3 vertical, on both long and short approaches. I'm happy to say that the vertical started to feel TOO easy, and that I was very tempted to put it up a hole or two. I restrained myself since we're just getting back to jumping, but it was a good feeling.

I'm also noticing myself riding more aggressively to the fences, with more of an Over, Under, or Through mentality instead of "oh gee I hope we make it over!"

Confidence FTW.