First Dressage and Jumping Lessons

Last Sunday I rode with FEI level trainer, Sharon Vander Ziel.  Sharon comes to the farm periodically to offer dressage lessons, which is super handy.  We had a private lesson, and primarily worked on preventing him from popping out through the left shoulder and staying soft in upward/downward transitions.  Sig was fantastic, earned lots of nice compliments from Sharon for being so correct and through at times, and we came away with lots of homework.  He and I are going to work more on leg yields and turn on the forehand to start isolating his hind end and asking for the hind legs to step over/under on cue.  His tendency, like most young horses, is to blow through the outside shoulder in the leg yield.  He is very smart and picked up on the concepts in the lesson very quickly.  He really felt very fancy and I had a fun ride.  I was absolutely thrilled with him!

Dressage is hard but apples are yummy

A few days later I had my first jump lesson on Sig (ever).  While I popped him over a few fences back during my short visit in May, I really haven't jumped seriously since before Soon died.  I had jumped Sig in December 2017 when I tried him, and once more in Maryland (probably in February 2018), but that's it.  So we're just starting from square one together.  That said, I felt better and more secure in the tack, and while my base is still loose, I feel like it's coming back.

For not having jumped in a month or so since I've been back, and not having done a ton of cantering, Sig was pretty fantastic.  He was strong and being in a group of four+ horses in the ring was very exciting, but he did settle and got focused.  We had to use the wall to stop only because he'd dive through that left shoulder.  Both Ashley and I agreed that halting in the corners to get him to expect that and set himself back, which worked. 

Next time I jump I plan to use the two-ring gag on him just to have a little extra control, and I expect with more jump lessons, more exposure to riding in/around groups, and just overall a better understanding of each other, Sig won't need that and can go back to his usual loose ring oval mouth.  I rode him in that usual set up around one of Ashley's jump lessons on Thursday (busy ring with five horses in it), and he was quiet and very good.  So I think the gag will just be an occasional reminder.

Overall I'm happy where we're at and while we have a lot of work to do, I'm exciting to see where we go from here.