A Little Fun

I thought it would be fun to post a picture of Spyder and then aks people what they thought the breed was. People were guessing a variety of thoughts. Most often guessed was Warmblood and Appendix, and I only listed what people guessed below once (even though there were multiple occurrences). Warmblood was the winner, BUT all Standardbreds look the same, right?

-Cleveland Bay

-QH

-TB

-Appendix

-Warmblood

-Standardbred

-Draft Cross

-Morgan

-Andalusian

-Lusitano

-Mustang'

-TB/Arabain/Standardbred

-QH Cross

-Appendix x Draft

- Morgan/QH

-Standardbred/QH

-Holsteiner/German Warmblood

-Trakehner

-Belgium/Thoroughbred

-Warmblood/Paint

Anyways, yesterday I rode after work. The w/t and moving over are coming along nicely. We also went in straight line at the trot to work on bend so we stayed in one direction and moved bend right, then left, back right, back left.. OK, you get the point. From there, we worked on the canter, and I pushed him off my leg in circle while I opened the outside rein. He went and went and went and never broke the gait. He didn't want to stop! This is the case when working in a circle, and on a straightaway, it falls to pieces. It was a lot of fun to see him happy and peppy so we moved to jumping. I don't get how he was so excited on one of the hottest days of the summer yet, but I'll take it.

We did the white gate/picket fence jump first, and I thought he'd jump 4' since we have yet to take that jump. It's been on the ground for a while, and I was always too lazy to get off to move it. Most of the other jumps were smaller than usual so we got to work with a few. He jumped the gate like he has done it all along, and then we stopped. I did that jump again to the next x-rail then stopped to make sure I had control. I came back to the gate, x-rail, then added a x-rail with a gap. Again, I thought he'd fly over it, but he looked, then jumped it like he'd been doing that forever. I did not even get hesitation for one of them.

We did that line of 3 jumps a few more times so I could work on sitting back in between, getting a half halt, and bringing him back down to a trot for each. He was so good that we ended it there after 30 minutes, and now I can't wait to ride again because I want to do more jumping! The 3 jumps made an "S" so it was nice to get to work on steering, too! They aren't all that far apart for his HUGE gait so it makes having to bring him back together a quicker process which makes me think, as well. I think we were both a lot less bored than usual.