Break Through

As I've mentioned before Bentley is a brave and game over fences but highly uneducated. I mean having jumped 5 times doesn't really make you an expert. The thing is... the dude thinks he's an expert! What we have learned about him is that he is very brave and game when he gets to do it his way (read: this includes running. Before the jump, after jumps, over the jump where ever 😂). In turn he was the equivalent of a one man wrecking ball because he would brace, run, and barely even pick up his legs. He was never out of control and he was quite pleased with himself but he would also either demolish a solid 50% of the jumps or have an awkward jump. To work on this we set some trot poles in front of the cross rail. He willingly went through but wasn't buying into doing it my way and instead had some rough approaches. After that he decided my way sucked (even though he never really did it fully my way) and if he couldn't do his way he wouldn't do it at all. Point him at a single fence and he was fine. 

 

The trainers working student been tacked up for me so I could get to my lesson in time!

So this past week I spent some time doing just pole work. But he had to do the pole work my way. The goal was to keep it simple and allow him to figure out the name of the game. He was great!!

 

Our pole work exercise 

 Fast forward to our jump lesson today and we had a major break through! The trainer and I discussed our new game plan now that we know a little more how he ticks when it comes to jumping. We started off with random poles throughout the arena. With no course we just trotted and cantered around over all the poles every which way. He was super rideable and was much more aware of his legs. Then we slowly added some jumps one at a time. He was looking for the jumps, not rushing, and actually felt a little rounder in his jumping style. He even gave me a couple of lead changes on his own. He jumped around intro sized fences with everything from flowers, to picket fences, to planks with zero issues! He actually even bailed me out of a few that I didn't ride well to and instead of running out or stopping he popped right over. Once he figures out how to use his body he will be quite the jumper I think. Love him!