The Tiniest Greenest Jumper Course

When you jump your dressage horse and he turns out to kinda like it.

One of my goals for this quarter was to get Bast jumping two feet. Thankfully the local Pony Club puts on the world's lowest key schooling shows in our front field. I resolved to get him out there and jump a small course or two this past weekend.

It was a total success.

Well, sorta.

Bast is still mainly a dressage horse. However, as I've talked about many times, I think teaching him to jump around a basic course with proficiency is just smart for building his overall education, value, and my enjoyment. I like using jumping, poles, or gallops as mental breaks from more focused work in the ring. While Bast thrives on his ring work, I want to make sure he's equally comfortable doing his "fun" activities.

So we jump, and it is so fun.

Eee!

We had schooled some individual fences recently at and slightly above 2ft. With that in mind, I asked for a course to be set around 2ft. Off we went!

Watch on Youtube

As you can see, we have little to no clue what we are doing. I've said before that I don't feel comfortable jumping a horse before it's schooling first level, and I think this video shows why. Honestly, I'm not a strong jumping rider. I have a dressage rider's typical loose and long leg. My balance is so firmly rooted in the vertical. I struggle to stay with my horse's efforts over fences. It would be totally unfair to ask a horse with less training to leap around.

Bast knows enough now to understand that he is going to go where I point, whatever that ends up entailing. My job is to get him to the fences as balanced as possible, which I am capable of doing. Together we aren't going to be on a fast track to upper level eventing, but we are safe and having fun at low fences.

Maybe someday I'll learn to ride in shorter stirrups again. Haha.

I know my training methods aren't for everyone. Plus, about a million people could train a horse to jump with less mistakes and more style. But, I'm heartened to see this little horse I took off the track turning into such a solid citizen. It always feels good when a horse I trained makes me look like the weak link. He's turning into such a good pony, and it pleases me greatly! (See if you can spot the lead change that was the absolute highlight of my evening.)

Now we just need more experience, and I need to remember to close my hip angle and legs. Nbd, just two things that were very hard for me to get over in my dressage journey. Ha!