Sun, hail, gust of wind, sun, hail, gust of wind… April leaves me spinning!
Today Chloe (12) worked rode Celebrity and clicked him for jumping in a style suitable for tiny riders. Celeb is 8 years old and at just under 12’2h, is likely to sell to a rider under the age of 10. Given that, we’ve been working on creating different cues for “just step over it” vs “jump.” Cebs is doing awesome. This fancy boy has been rewarded a lot in the past for nice square knees a a scopey jump, but three days of clicking for jumping like a beginner’s pony and he can go back and forth on cue. Today had an added challenge – the winds must have been a constant 20mph with 40mph gusts today! Plus, there were sudden hail storms throughout the afternoon, which were quite noisy. Nevertheless, Cebs never spooked once. He was awesome!
While she was riding, I tagged Chloe for releasing over the jumps. She tends to want to hold back. Chloe has a more natural dressage-type seat so closing her hip angle and coming forward for hunter style riding is a challenge for her. The cool thing about our Freeze Frame method for teaching, though, is that you don’t have to know what you’re doing wrong, only what you’re doing right. When you hear a tag, you know you got it. No tag = try again.
Chloe worked up from one jump to a 5-jump course on Cebs. This style of jumping is a migration exercise because it is about teaching the horse to maintain gait, rhythm, and straightness despite changes in terrain. The jumping can also be a synchronizing exercise, designed to bring the horse’s and rider’s energy into sync for greater range, but this exercise was simplified to focus on relaxation, peace, and contentment, making it a migration exercise. Cebs and Chloe migrated through the jumps as they would through a trail, letting their focus fade, enjoying the ease of movement, riding in a passive, yin style.
After Chloe rode, I got on to feel Cebs out. He was lovely, taking a smooth, rhythmic trot and a rocking horse canter. I was impressed by how light he was after Chloe rode him. He was supple and well-balanced. It was a successful day.
After Ceb’s session, I used Ilo, my WY BLM Mustang, to demonstrate some groundwork for Chloe. I had Ilo do what we call, “Travel Together,” where the horse travels over obstacles at a trot while you walk beside him at a distance. Travel together is a lot like longeing or circling, but our focus is on straightness and balance. We also stay just a little in front of the horse so we are leading him as opposed to driving him.
Using Travel Together, Chloe learned how to send Thistle over multiple jumps in a row, making a continuous flow around the arena that simulates riding. After Chloe and Thistle could do several jumps in a row without breaking gait, I had them play with some barrels.
We set up 3 barrel jumps in a row, going from hard to quite difficult. The last barrel jump was a single barrel off of the wall, so the horse had to volunteer to jump it, rather than just go around. Initially Chloe had quite a bit of trouble getting her tools organized to guide Thistle over the barrels, which are up to Thistle’s belly. Eventually, Chloe was successful and Thistle jumped the barrels quite beautifully. No photos of Thistle clearing the barrels today because I got to busy teaching, but there will be some soon.
Max Schneider, from Parelli Central, said our videos were, “wow…amazing.” 
There is a scene in Baby Mama where Steve Martin says to Tina Fey, “Congratulations, Kate. I want to reward you with five minutes of uninterrupted eye contact.” Baby Mama is a dreadful movie, full of over-the-top stereotypes, but this scene really made me laugh. While we wouldn’t necessarily want it from a loony, new age boss, how true it is that uninterrupted eye contact is a commodity these days…