Last night I met up with my friend Lennie at the barn for a little jumping. I need to do a whole post some time on support systems, on Team Poe if you will (I totally want Team Poe t-shirts; maybe I should add learning to draw/design to my to-do list?). Anyway, for now: Lennie is awesome and is always ready to remind me to breathe and stop being an idiot (two very useful pieces of advice for working around horses and for life in general), and also knows how to set appropriate grids. Yet another thing on the to-do list…

So! Last night was Jump Night, the first time Poe or I have seen a fence since October. We’re signed up for a two-day jumping clinic at the end of March; I dropped my entry in the mail on Monday feeling woefully unprepared. The feeling carried through last night as I was warming him up — a little walk/trot/canter, me preoccupied with how strange my shorter stirrups felt; a little work over some trot poles; and then up the quarter line to our first little cross-rail, me feeling (and riding) like a particularly inept, drunken monkey. By the end, though, we breezed through a two-stride vertical combination, the last fence 2’9″ but feeling like nothing, and I could not have felt better about our prospects for the clinic. We still need a lot of regular work between now and then, but it’s completely do-able. We’re going to have a blast.

I feel like I should say something about our jump work in light of Poe’s age. There’s quite a bit of controversy in the equestrian community about the proper age to start horses, about the type and quantity of work that’s appropriate for young horses. The Dude’s birthday is May 17; when I got him (he passed his vet check December 28, 2009) he was just beyond three and a half. He’d been professionally started under saddle the previous summer, as a three year old. The earliest work was done by someone who starts babies, and he spent a month getting some trail training with a western guy; the rest of the work was done by (or under the supervision of) a professional jumper. She started him over fences, and I jumped him over some baby stuff when I first tried him, to see how he went. The first five months I had him we did nothing but flatwork: steering, relaxation, rhythm, ground manners. I took him over some jumps on his fourth birthday, and the rest of the summer we jumped once a week at most, in very short sessions. He has always been happy and interested in it, and usually calm (he does really love it, but the excitement of Mr. Poe is not like the excitement of, say, an off-track Thoroughbred). He’s a big dude (16.3hh) with jumping bloodlines and nothing I’ve pointed him at has felt anything like work for him. He has a great mind and I am so, so grateful for his professional start.

I think I’m doing the right thing integrating small amounts of over fences work into his routine now. He feels mentally and physically on board for it. I plan to spend the season at BN, and see where that takes us. I have to admit I have my fingers crossed for a 2012 move-up to Novice…

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