Today Naners and I had a lesson with another H/J trainer, one I've known for a couple of years but haven't ridden with before. The place she works out of is between me and town, so it's not as long a haul as I would have to most other places.
It was a good lesson. She set up a basic course and we worked on keeping Banana slow and quiet and then me just getting out of her way. It was the same, yet different, from what we worked on last fall with the other H/J trainer. With her it was more, "don't support the horse at all, let her figure it out," which of course did not go well. This trainer is more, "ride her and support as needed, but try to set her up so you don't need to intervene." The grail was being able to trot over a jump with a loose rein. Banana is getting better at it.
In her opinion, Banana is a perfectly fine and cute jumper, she just needs miles. She told me a couple of stories of insane things green horses have done that have turned out to be amazing jumpers :D We also need to trust each other a little more: I need to trust her that she'll jump, she needs to trust me that I'll be there for her, but not accidentally grab her in the mouth either (I can't believe that has become an issue for me. I hang my head in shame.) Same solution to both: jump things. I trust Banana implicitly to act as she acts in every situation but jumping. I'm going to try to squeeze in two lessons a week until St Johns, it just seems pertinent. I feel really good about us making forward progress as the weeks go on. I really like this trainer right now. She gave me just the right amount to think about. She found all the holes in our flat work too... I've been spending too much time on conditioning :D
No comments:
Post a Comment