Not too much to report today, as we had a theory lesson. Well, practical theory lesson, but anyway. We had Spitfire down in the arena to do some loose jumping. Next to Gamir, he’s one of the most skilled jumpers we have in the stable, having competed internationally at a fairly high level. He ended up with us because he failed a veterinary inspection before a sale, and the riding school gambled on his problems not being recurring ones. So far, he’s been very sound, and he’s a very good jumper. Just a little on the hot side, though, and in combination with his size that means there’s no way I’ll ever be riding him.
What we did today was a pretty basic two-jump setup, which we used to observe how his technique changed with the height of the obstacles. Being as experienced as he is, he didn’t have much of an issue with judging the distance for himself, though he certainly didn’t jump any higher than he had to either. He’s a pretty gutsy horse who isn’t scared about occasionally knocking into a rail. It would have been interesting to have a few more horses down, to compare techniques, but having just him storm around in there was probably safest. ;)