Day 2: The Last Time You Rode A Horse And What you Did?

*Thinking.... Thinking.... Thinking*

Last time I rode was October the 4th.

This is too long ago.

Yeah so I had my last lesson nearly two weeks ago, I would've been at GV for volleying last sat however school holidays finished, it was my first week back at school and despite GV and the people at GV being the only people/place that truly makes me happy, unwind and relax (yes 10 hours of hard, hard work in the heat is my way definition of happy, and relaxing. That's the horsey life for ya. LOL) mum still said I couldn't go (and I can't drive myself yet:( so I was stuck at home, sitting on my but and comforting my dog who seemed to despise everything, to be honest I felt them same way.

Me 'cept I love GV people and horses (all the ponies) stuff everyone else :P

So back to the original topic (See, I told you I get off topic easily!) my last lesson consisted of prepping for the barn show jumping schooling thingy in a few months. Now I've only two pointed for two laps since I've been back riding (easing my stupid back, into it) and so my muscles were some sort of atrocious mess and I was weak, but my balance and coordination was there, kinda. Luckily my instructor actually also had a back injury, hers however was a fairly major one and she ended up taking off around 1 1/2 - 2 years! So she understands that I'm still getting back into things and I will have to rebuild muscle. 

So "R" (my instructor) set up a small course (30 - 40cm, 5 jumps?) so we could get used to jumping again, we did a few months of solid flatwork/dressage for the dressage training day (that I ended up missing, again, thanks back *insert angry faces) and not much jumping, only ground poles to help with striding and stuff.

So yeah long story short Casino doesn't jump. He'll happily trot over the 'jumps' (I use the term loosely, I haven't really done much compared to some of you!) but will not, I repeat will NOT jump in correct form. We tried every fricking thing we could. We tried raising the jumps slightly, he refused even though "R" was chasing him and I was kicking him. We tried cantering him up to the jumps, he would canter full force as if he was going to jump, me riding him up until the last second and legit 5cm before the jump he would trot, and casually trot over it. We tried so, so, so, SO many things and nothing would make him jump. The only time he actually jumped was over a 60cm cross rail in between two barrels, even then it was more of a cat leap.

Oh Casino...

 I can only partially blame him however, he isn't a 'trained' lesson/jumping horse by any means, and I reckon he just needs to be taken back to basics on that. He is also a weirdly built horse with a very, very short stride and a weird build. I would also blame my weak muscles for a portion of the problem. Now I would love to work on his jumping with him, but "R" was so fed up with him it was actually quite hilarious ;D She said I will definitely not be riding him in the training day, and I get to choose between riding Gilligan or Ranger (both lovely horses who are technically beginner adults however she said they need a bit more 'encouragement' to jump:)

And if I'm not mistaken, this is the first time I've blogged two days in a row since the start of this blog. So sad, but an improvement!