Jump Schools And Creative Solutions

Despite hair loss, life goes on in our corner of the world.

This past week has been nutty for me with work and other commitments that I continually seem to say "yes" to and think I have time for, but I somehow squeezed in a jump school on Wednesday afternoon.

We managed to build a makeshift course in our top field, which will do nicely until the farmer has to till it again and we can move back into the designated jump field. But for now, we've got a huntery sort of course set up: two 5-stride outside lines (set in such a way that you can really play with your adjustability and ride in a 4, 5, or 6) and a single diagonal in the middle of that, which lends itself nicely to bending lines going two different ways.

Everything was set between 2'3" and 2'9", making this a nice friendly course for us, height-wise, and all of the fences were simple verticals. It's a huge pain in the butt to drag jumps out there to make oxers!

Dino warmed up a little sticky, but was soon moving forward nicely after a few minutes of trotting on a long rein. I used the "burst forward and settle" warm up from our last cross country lesson along with some leg yields, and he responded really well to it!

I started off by jumping a few single fences off both leads, and everything just felt easy. I was seeing the distances, Dino was taking me right to the fences, and the whole thing flowed. I had one ugly jump where I asked him to wait to the base where there really wasn't any more room to wait, and Good Boy Dino sure waited and jumped from practically underneath it!

A view of Dino after his post-bath roll, stuffing his face. Typical.

I am starting to feel a lot more secure in the tack over fences now that we've been jumping for a few weeks since we started back in legit training this spring, and am enjoying being relatively riding fit again. Dino was jumping the 2'9" fences incredibly, really snapping his knees up and coming up through his withers in the air. He felt amazing, and it felt great being able to stick with him instead of needing five strides to recover on the backside!

We strung together some small courses, and I was really happy with how I was able to keep riding throughout, instead of needing to pull up and take breaks because of physical weakness or mental anxiety. I rode forward, I tried to let Dino take care of the distances, and everything felt great! After jumping the double bending line (a 4 to a 6, or vice versa)  a few times and nailing it, I called it a day. I think we'll be more ready for Lainey in 2 weeks than I originally thought when I signed up!

I also went and bought a very long dressage pad to help protect Dino's spur rubs when I ride. Hopefully it does the trick and will allow him to grow his hair back! He's already starting to grow new hair in on those mountain lion claw marks. Unfortunately, I think the area around his rub is also succumbing to a gross skin infection, so I have some serious medicated wash on order and in the meantime have been soaking it in Banixx as often as possible, and will be washing my half chaps in case they are harboring any nasty organisms. I hate how out of control his skin can get when he gets something like this! Damn Cushings.

POOF SPUR RUBS ARE GONE!