I've recently been getting more of a chance at getting Bijou out. The other mare had a really promising sale prospect that fell through because of nothing but the 'mistake' of her gender. I hate it when people are so stereotypical. I love my mare because she is so not mare-ish. Yes, I would probably have had a problem if she were, but some are not. Don't turn down the perfect horse just because of it's gender.
Anyways... I've been focusing on my girly more. This means crossrails!!! I've really been working a lot on her trot, getting her to relax into a collected, ok maybe lazy, trot and canter. I've been working on getting her round through her transitions to the trot. I think today was the first day she didn't throw her head up into the trot for only one transition, but it was there! We also sneaked into a very very nice slow canter to the left.
There's a really cool woman out at the barn who owns 3-4 TB's and understands a lot of my issues raising a TB. She's always really helpful and SOOO knowledgeable. She walked by today and asked "when is she going to start jumping?" and I thought... oh ya! I'm supposed to be working on that! So I put down a line to just poles, had her trot towards them. She stopped right at the base of the poles, I squeezed, and she walked over them. The next time through I kept my eyes extra up, and put leg ON over the poles and she went right through. I did this from both directions 5-6 times, then put up the smallest x-rail I could at about 8 in in the center. We did this and the first time she stopped, I squeezed, and she walked over. I went back around and put leg on and she jumped it and came right back to a little trot. We did this in both directions until it was no big deal and she wasn't trying to be squirmy towards it and called it a day.
I am just not sure how hard I should push it. When is the point that I just start putting the jumps up? I know I just need to work her over poles and x-rails all day long every day in order to get her used to them but I want to make sure I don't over-face her and turn jumping into a big fight.
I guess I'll just keep on keepin' on. I also tried to do a BN USEA test B 2010 and got video... it was... interesting. I'll have to steal the vid from my friends camera so that I can post it on youtube :D
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I'd say keep them low until she's bored out of her mind going over them. Then when you raise them they'll be exciting instead of scary. But I'm not a trainer so take that with a grain of salt.
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