2 for 3

Well. Ive had 3 jump lessons. And guess what I managed to do in this last one? Fall off. Again. 

I'll start from the beginning. I was finally early for once for my lesson and was set to ride a new horse, Bing. He was a previous eventer. Getting ready I managed to yank my boot zippers too hard and busted them. Whoops. Black vet wrap to the rescue.

I got on and was told he had been hacked that morning so he was already pretty warmed up so I only spent a few minutes getting to know his gaits. We were going to work on a grid to a roll back that day. Mind you, I've never done a roll back and man they are hard!

The grid started with poles to cross rails and ended on 2'3 verticals with 2'6 oxers. Going through the grid set up at full height I felt Bing start to lose energy. He kind of gave me the middle finger to my leg encoragement and balked at the last oxer, from a bounce. I prompty flipped over (thankfully not hitting any poles.)

This sucked. I bounced up but mentally was pretty shaken. This is where my fear of jumping lies. The hard part is I was truely beaming with joy sailing over fences when I had a horse beneath me. 

I was a little shakey but got back on and tried to hold back the tears. I took a few laps of transitions and started crying. My trainer asked if I would be more comfortable just jumping a single vertical to get back in the groove. 

I took a deep breath, legged him up and got him very infront of my leg and kept my chest up and headed back to the grid. I had a small vendetta with this horse now. And by forcing myself to rise like I knew how, we completed the grid beautifully and I continued on the mini course and jumped a roll back to another figure 8 roll back. We ended going through the grid one final time. 

That fall really did some mental damage. Here's hoping the next ride goes smoother.