Raising the bar

Part of the reason 2' jumps bareback were so easy this week is because I've been consistently jumping 2'3" courses. And jumping them well. Sam's been fantastic, if a bit lazy - but we're communicating really well. It's totally boosted my confidence and I've been daring enough to up the ante.

Here's what we jumped this week. All the verticals are 2'3" (except the entry to the in-and-out) and the blue jump is actually 2'4".

Today though, jumpers were kicked out of this arena to add more rubber to the footing and I imagine we won't be back in until the winter as the dressage folk will want to take over and practice on a full court (our indoor is slightly smaller then 1/2 court) for show season and dressage schooling shows we host.

So our jumps were to be moved today to the cedar chip arena, lovingly named, Jump Arena, which underwent a minor overhaul this winter to help with sogginess. The north 1/2 is pretty good, so we'll be using that side (where the bareback jumps are) until the south side packs down from the aeration it got.

It's an adjustment to the softer footing, but we knew this was coming and we've been doing last 10mins of riding in the softer footing for the last 2 weeks. We'll have to ride with a little more power in the softer footing and I hope it doesn't ramp up Sam in a negative way.

After some travel for me during the next few weeks, I want to start adding in 2'6" jumps so I can prep for my goal of schooling full 2'6" courses in prep for shows at that height.