Chessington 15

20th July 2010

Chessington Equestrian Centre, Chessington

Harvey again today, and as soon as I heard I was on him, my heart sank a little, as I was fearing another repeat of last weeks 'mess'. That was most unfair of me, as Harvey is probably the most popular horse there, and is very good to ride, if a little lazy when not being 'ridden' properly. Started working in, and he was moving forward quite nicely. Sarah then started laying out trotting poles with the aim of doing them while he was fresh, unlike last week where we tried canter poles at the end of the lesson when he was tired and ended up trotting over. This week we started off with trotting poles so we couldn't really go wrong! Got him stretching over them, and I was working on getting him nice and straight, as he was wavering a bit and was over bent to the inside. After a few turns on each rein, we progressed to canter poles, and apart from once, we kept the canter throughout. Then Sarah asked me about jumping, and put a crosspole up at the end. Apart from trotting over a cross pole on Patchwork, I hadn't jumped since I was a teenager. Harvey was lovely though, if a bit dismissive of the poles, being far too light and flimsy to bother making an effort over! The only time we really messed it up was when I'd kept him going forward after the jump, and was still in the same canter coming round the next time - I think I was so surprised as having kept it that I forgot what I was supposed to be doing and we kicked the pole out.  Moving the pole to an upright seemed to help, and although it was probably no more than 2ft, he seemed to make a little more effort. A couple of nice jumps to finish on, and the lesson ended, with my grinning like an idiot and feeling much better about my first group lesson on Thursday. Interestingly, Sarah said I looked much more confident when jumping than on the flat. I never jumped that much in my teens, maybe a dozen or so courses and random logs out hacking, but it didn't feel like a major 'thing' today. It was there, I went over it. End of. I still felt a bit messy on top, and my stirrups were again slipping, but I decided to stop fiddling with them, accept that my feet weren't in the ideal position in them, and just concentrate on riding. It may not have looked great, but it worked. I'm also noticing that I'm doing more - just little things like half halting and riding the corners, and making him go straight when going across the school.  I'm also discovering that Harvey has a lovely little buck when you flick the whip at him, which I have to do a fair bit. I was quite enjoying it actually. I'd thought before that he was maybe just kicking out, but it's definitely a little buck.