Video Update

Hemie is doing very well. Overall we're having fabulous, productive rides. Lessons have been mostly jumping rather than dressage, but with enough positive feedback on our flatwork that I'm feeling good about our practice rides.

Here's video from a recent lesson with a fun exercise: trot fence, left turn to downhill black tube, then into small gymnastic line. 

Here we added some height to the fences. Later on we added a novice up-bank out of the arena.

Still a trot fence, but 3'. Hemie had no problem.

Uphill to the tube as we say goodbye to precious daylight!

This was another good exercise - a long one-stride uphill with a pole in the middle. Hemie and I tend to add strides, and this was coming out of a tight turn, so this was great for us to lengthen without getting crazy. Hemie read the question quickly and accurately and we had no problem at all.

Last night's lesson we had a different fabulous exercise: a figure eight with angled jumps. They were both verticals (fairly close together - set 3 strides apart) that started off around 2'3" but ended at a solid 3'.  Hemie was great with the angles, was very keen to jump, and it was a great exercise for me to sit up and ride immediately following the jump. The first few rounds, I used the whole arena, then trainer corrected me to make tighter turns so I had to get my act together quickly! Plus we got lots of lovely lead changes too.