Hey! So I haven't posted in ages, but I'm still alive. Here's what's happening. Taz is working towards retirement I've started trying clicker training Working on roundness in lessons, partly because we're trying to tone down the activity so that Taz isn't overworked or injured. So yeah. Taz is approximately 26, so he's at a point where jumping isn't something that he's going to be doing much longer. My trainer has a student who's horse shopping, so she's planning to lease that student's horse and use him in lessons, so that's likely who I'll be riding soon. In the meantime, we're working on roundness and all that fun stuff, which honestly, I like just as much as jumping, so I'm okay with that. I've also started experimenting with clicker training. I've been working with Taz to get him to touch a target on command, which has honestly gone far better than I thought. I've only had one session with him, but ...
...but I'm back now. It's been two months, and I've gone from trying to figure out how to canter without dying, to jumping without dying. My lesson on Wednesday was mainly focused on jumping. We started with some canter poles, and counting the strides between them, then moved on to a line of 2 poles and then a jump. I'd done this before, so after the initial getting-used-to-it stage, I was doing pretty well. Then, the instructor added another jump, which quickly became my downfall. I've been riding Taz for the past month or so, and because he's really lazy, I've gotten used to riding very forward in the canter and over jumps or poles. However, at this point, he started to pick up momentum, and instead of going too slow, started going way too fast. 4 strides turned into 3 and a half and some pretty terrible counting. At one point, he took the first jump weirdly, which made me lose count, which made me get unfocused, which made him decide that the second jum...