We started with a little x-bar and poles however Cobs wasn't jumping them properly so Jamie set up a bounce with a small raised pole to make him back off the first jump & make him think. He clicked onto it pretty fast and started to round more over the jump so that was great. Good little exercise to remember.
We then went into the main arena for some grid work. Had a place pole to an upright one stride to a double oxer. Coming into it the first time I wasn't ready for him to back off so it went pear shaped. He still jumped it though which was good but gave me a good wake up call.
Jamie got me to go into a few jumps closing my eyes about four strides out just to sit with him & stop fiddling before the jump....can honestly say it was scary LOL! The first time I counted strides and got it wrong so jumped before he did which then got all messy! So we did that a few times until it became less scary for me. Something I am not going to do again in a hurry. Amazing what a difference it makes though.
So once I stopped trying to make things happen she put the jumps up....(gulp). He wasn't getting into a great spot for the second part of the double so she put a pole over the rails (photo below) to try and get him to back off a bit. It worked but we did some rather hideous jumps and my chicken arms came back with a vengence LOL!
But we got there in the end. Cobs actually felt quite tired today - think I will give him some time out for a few weeks. He has been working so well that I don't want to spoil it. Think we both deserve it :)
Bounce Exercise:
Pole over Oxer:
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