I must post this as documentation of Lucky Star’s progress. Weather has turned nice and I’m able to ride and play with Lucky Star most every day. We make amazing progress when consistency happens.
Are you sitting down? This is a stunner.
We have been practicing our jumping with the latest success of jumping over barrels with only the front legs…and that isn’t often. Usually, Lucky Star balks at the barrels and just plows into them. We have managed to jump the barrels with his front legs but then he stops forward motion. We end up with barrels underneath us. Jumping the barrels with only his front legs as been as goodwe’ve been practicing every day jumping the barrels on-line. I’ve taken the barrels apart and set up poles as the jump. Today, Lucky Star jumped over the poles. it was a serious jump. His hind end popped up a bit and sent my hind end out of the saddle. When my hind end gets propelled out of the saddle means a real JUMP has just occurred. And not only did he do this once, but he did it twice. On our forth attempt, we went back to plowing through the poles and knocked them askew. Jumping ended for the day with success. We’ll try it again with the poles a few more times and then return to the barrel challenge. And do you remember that I pledged Lucky and I to be a jumping team. Our day in the sun is not far away. We might go public!
The second activity we did after resting up from all the jumping was walk to canter transitions. Yes, you read it right. We started out at a walk, sped up to a canter and then came back down to a walk. If Lucky stayed in the canter until I asked him to come down to a walk, he got a nice long walk to get his breath back. Lucky does not yet canter from the walk, but that’s where I start asking. On this great day, Lucky argued for short periods of time and took a lot less convincing on my part before he gave in and cantered. It’s only taking 10-50 feet before he speeds up enough to get into a canter. This is amazing progress as it used to take us about a fourth of the arena before he managed to canter. On this great day, Lucky argued for short periods of time and took a lot less convincing on my part before he gave in and cantered.
Lucky Star had a cardio fitness day! I had to put my pink Missouri Fox Trotter bling hoodie on him as a cooler. Oh the suffering …..
