The return of the jumping pony

Today was Ponys first day back jumping since probably around September when we had our bee incident in the field. I am totally for not over jumping him and giving him the winter off from it to focus on our dressage. If you think about the long run he only has so many courses and dressage tests left (hopefully we have a lot still!) and anything I can do to help make those numbers higher, I will. He has taken to jumping SO well that I dont feel like we need to school it hard all winter either. I was interested to see what he would do today and like usual he didnt disappoint. It is actually perfect because one of my friends at the barn is just starting to bring her mare back into jumping after a long break due to an injury so we set up our cute little baby jumps and hopped over them together. Both horses were amazing considering the circumstances! We were all a little rusty (us riders were way worse) but after a couple times over the cross rails we all started getting back into the swing of things. We just set a 4 stride line down the long side with a cross rail and a baby oxer along with a cross rail on the diagonal that we could also use as a bending line back to the other cross rail. The jumps were small, simply set, and very underwhelming for our first time back but it was nice to have both of them act like they have been doing it all along. Pony even brought his changes out and everything! I could tell that he was happy to change it up and get back to jumping as he got more and more excited as we jumped. I kept it short and sweet to make sure not to over do it.

We are planning to jump at least every other weekend, if not once a week, together which should really help Ponys fitness. The nice part is that we are both starting over and are in no rush to raise the fences so we can jump together without jump height changes at all. We know that our horses are totally capable of jumping BN fences quite easily so now we just focus on bringing them back slowly and safely until they are in better shape! Tomorrow will be a nice easy bareback ride to give him a day off before our lesson on Monday! Only 2 weeks till we ride with Dolly at the Expo!