"look Ma, no hands!"

[quietann]

goddessfarmer likes to push me with the jumping, so here we are going through a 2 fence "bounce" with no hands. The rail is about 2'3" I think. She also had me do it with reins but no stirrups, and then as a three-jump "bounce" (and she let me have my reins and stirrups back.)

(Sorry the images are so dark; it's really hard to photograph at high noon in this indoor ring without using a flash, and there's only so much photo editing I can do...)





Leg too far back, sigh. This is actually the first jump in the bounce.


J taking Trumpie through the same bounce, except with 3 fences and much better equitation:




After this, deguspice met me for lunch at a yummy roast beef place, and then I went to Windrush to help with the therapeutic riding. The teenage boys who help get the horses ready were once again sweet kids; but every week we will have only one who has been before, and three new ones, and almost none of them have ever been around horses before. I also found out that for most of them, this is "community service" work as part of a misdemeanor conviction. Still, I am very impressed with their willingness to try, and how very very good they are with the therapeutic riders.

We took the riders on a trail ride today, which was a lot of fun, if a bit chaotic with 5 riders, each of whom has a horse handler and two sidewalkers. My kid was really distracted by all the nature around him, and very hard to engage during the various exercises the kids do while riding. He's still a nice kid. He rides Bucky, an ancient retired polo pony who has Seen It All.

Sadly, it looks like Windrush at one point had a nice little cross-country course set up in the fields and woods, but I don't think they let people use it anymore. Lots of lower-level fences I would love to try, and a few harder ones. Sigh...

Comments

[unclebooboo.livejournal.com]

Congratulations- it takes a lot of courage (and great trust in your horse and your instructor) to do this. Success must be a tremendous confidence booster.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

Much of why it happened is Trumpie :) He's a very good horse, fabulously trained, but one has to work around his vision issues. (e.g. a couple of times when J changed the jumps, he refused the first time because he didn't quite see what he was heading towards -- but once he'd had a look at what he needed to do, he was fine. So for the "no hands" we had gone through this exact sequence a few times, so really I just had to stay with him.)

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

way cool! I'm glad you were able to get the pics lighter. goddessfarmer's were so dark

[donnad.livejournal.com]

You look great! But then I know nothing about horseback riding. but you just look so comfortable and at ease on the horse.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

This was the second time through with no hands, and I felt pretty confident :)

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

You look great!

[quietann.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I have a very long way to go, but this makes me feel good. And much of the accomplishment should be credited to Trumpie :)

[harimad.livejournal.com]

Nice job.

Why not ask the stables about the course? Maybe if a more experiened rider who is known to them, did it with you?

a few thoughts, aka bored at work

[quietann.livejournal.com]

I need to get in Tina's good graces first :( goddessfarmer would probably say, "hey, let's go try them; the worst that will happen is you'll fall off" (and I have demonstrated that I won't fall off if Trumpie refuses a fence, mostly because he does it in slow motion!) But I have to prove to Tina that I can control Bearito much better before she'll let me do anything like what I did on Trump yesterday! I have already told goddessfarmer that she doesn't *dare* tell Tina what we're doing!

OTOH Tina was really nice to me yesterday, so maybe she's forgotten about me banging around on Bearito on Monday.

Some of the jumps, or rather the approaches and landings, are in bad shape since no one's maintaining them.

I have heard rumors that one of the advanced classes went out in the spring and jumped the ones that are in good shape, and my beloved Guiness was hopeless at it (e.g. trying to climb down into a ditch rather than jumping over it.)

There may also be a liability issue, since really one's supposed to do cross-country fences in a back protector, and few Windrush students would have them. But what's the difference between an 18 inch log and an 18 inch fence in a ring, besides the fact that the log won't fall down if the horse hits it?

If I am feeling brave, I might ask Marge (who owns the property and the horses) about them. They also have a "jump lane" that doesn't get used either (12 foot wide, fenced on either side, you can put up poles at intervals so as to do schooling without hands etc. with no way of the horse running out.)