My horse never ceases to amaze me.

I absolutely love my horse. I just got him a few weeks ago, and he has been doing some phenomenal flatwork. We are pretty much solid walk/trot right now, and only fault at the canter is our trot to canter & walk to canter transitions. His halts are absolutely beautiful.

He is totally new to jumping, and I had a 'downer' night the other night when jumping. I just felt really off, and he felt awkward. I decided that it was back to ground poles and teeny tiny crossrails to build back his confidence, and hope to clear these little issues we're having.

But today, holy cow! A friend and I took the horses over to a local stable, where you can pay to use their facilities. They have a super nice Hunter/Jumper arena full of jumps (water well jumps, gates, planks, roll tops, flowers galore, etc.) and a full cross country course.

I normally lunge him before every single ride in side reins. But since he unloaded so quietly and stood completely still while I tacked him, I started to lunge him & he was SO soft and so attentive, that I just got on him.
WOW was he great! He came right down and stretched for me, and never spooked or even threatened to bolt once. Then we jumped the plain, boring wood jumps. At first he tried to evade them, but I put him back on his butt and asked him to round before the fence, and he gave up dropping his shoulder.

SOO, took him to the hunter/jumper ring, lowered some to 2' - 2'3, and he was PHENOMENAL! Only refused one, and yes, it was my fault. I dropped my leg three strides out and he took advantage of it & dropped his shoulder to run out. My fault.
But as long as I stayed calm & confident, he did too! He was a perfect gentlemen, and even cantered a five-stride line, while staying on the right lead!

At the end I got even more confident and cantered him up to a 2'9 gate. I am certain it was our best jump to date. He cantered right up to it and didn't OVER jump it like he tends to. He jumped it perfectly, and I stayed right with him. (No more jumping out of tack!)

I am so happy & proud of my baby. He is a fresh 5 year old, and completely new to this stuff. He used to have a tendency to be spooky/hot but it seems like this past couple weeks I've been working him he's really mellowed out, a lot. A few weeks ago I would have never dreamed he'd be this good today, doing something like this.

Watch out shows, here we come!

Thanks for reading my novel!

Congrats! I love those days were everything seems to just turn out roght

Thank you!

It was a very nice change... I feel so solid about our flatwork & dressage in the short few weeks I've been working him, but I was feeling so crappy about our jumping. This was definitely the motivation I needed.

Good for you for taking your time with your boy. Sounds like you are taking all the essential steps in your Dressage to build a strong, well rounded, confident mount!

Glad to hear you taking the blame for the refusal - that makes a responsible, educated rider. As Ian Millar said "A good rider blames themselves and a poor rider blames their horse"

So pat yourself on the back! Did you get piccies?

Thank you! I am just uber surprised at how quickly he's coming along in such a small time frame. I've had youngsters before, and the quickest learner had been my Trakehner mare. She had taken about 6 months to get where he is at now. He's just a very fast, and willing learner. Makes our lives 100 times easier when they're like that! Haha.

I agree with you that refusals are almost always rider error. If my guy refuses, I know its because one of my aids is failing. Nine times out of ten I can pinpoint it, like today. I knew I dropped my leg. I try to 'be there' to support him and help him, but I also want him to learn to do things on his own. I don't want to carry him over anything, I want his confidence to build. It is a fine line, and sometimes I feel myself dropping too many aids, ones that I should be keeping.

I didn't get any pictures, it was just us two and we had to trek to the arenas from the trailer, haha. I was iffy about taking him to a Combined Schooling Test (Dressage & Stadium) next weekend, because he hasn't been doing this for very long, but after his performance today I'm pretty certain I'm going to enter him. So hopefully I will get some good shots from the show!

((Oh, and I used to live in Ohio. Neighbors, somewhat? Lol. Do you ever show in Ohio?))

Good for you!! How exciting!!! Where in OH did you used to live? I'm from NE Ohio and just started eventing mini trials this summer