We were supposed to have another week of dressage, but we ended up switching around a couple of classes to put in a theory lesson earlier than planned. So, this Tuesday we jumped, and we’ll do the same next week. I am hoping for Murphy then, though Gamir was pretty well suited to the exercise we did this week.
The setup was pretty simple, just a fairly easy three combination down one side of the arena. Since we were doing this in relation to the canter work done during the dressage lessons, the focus was on getting just the right canter for the distacne between the obstacles. She had it setup so that it didn’t quite fit most of the horses unless we either shortened or lengthened their strides.
With Gamir, that generally means lengthening, because he’s not a long-striding horse naturally. But since I knew from the get-go that this was the focus, we didn’t really have any problems with the distance. Well, not once we actually jumped at a canter. To start with, we came in at a trot and were supposed to get a canter only between obstacle two and three. I suck at that.
For the most part, though, I managed to avoid some of my common problems. I didn’t work too hard, and I managed a pretty good pace and a decent length of stride. However, we kept getting the wrong canter after the last jump. But, my instructor felt I was approaching it just right, and that Gamir just wasn’t responding correctly. He did feel a bit stiff at the start of this lesson (and he had looked hopelessly uninspired during the class before ours), so I think he may have been a little off physically even though he felt perfectly limber once we had warmed up.