The other night after warming up and putting her thru her paces, I took Mazy over fences for practice. There are two fences at each end of the arena and a cross rail in the middle. This is all set up in the shape of an S if you can imagine that. We warmed up at the walk, trot and canter both directions of the arena. She was going well enough so I popped her over one jump.
Mazy hopped right over the jump and continued on like no big deal so I aimed her at another and again she popped over with no problem. I slowed her down to a walk and let her rest a little. When we picked up a trot again the cross rail was well within range. She went over it effortlessly and landed in a canter. I let her continue on the length of the short side of the arena.
Since she is just starting over fences I don't want her developing any bad habits like racing off after fences, rushing the fence or refusing. Right now I'm keeping the jumps low and unimposing with all of then set as 18" verticals. She can literally walk over them- so nithing to be afraid of. We went over a couple here and a couple there and then we made a course of it. Starting at the top of the S at a trot, she bounced over the blue jump landing in a canter on the left lead, took the red jump in stride and then the crossrail too. This time when she landed she was on the right lead which was perfect heading across the arena for the purple jump which she cleared without effort as well as the green jump too.
Mazy seemed to fit every stride in without trying and found the 'sweet spot' at each jump. I gave her a short break and then asked her to repeat the jumps going the opposite direction. This time she almost seemed to be on auto pilot it was so easy. Green, purple, across the arena to the cross rail- changing leads over it- right turn to the red and finish over the blue jump.... Mazy seemed to enjoy it and although she might have kept on going, I called it good there. End on a good note when you're both doing well.
Sure we have a lot of dressage and flatwork to do, but we will still pop over the jumps now and then for practice. And while she found her strides so easily on this course, eventually I will have to take it down and rearrange it for a different course. I may also raise a couple of them too. Eventually I would like to show her as a hunter pony. She would look super cute and if she really enjoys jumping like she seems to- no reason to limit her to the low stuff. She's one if those ponies that can be small, mighty and resilient. Now I just need to play with my camera and figure out the settings so I can get some pics of us in action.
