Learning by listening

Jezebel is back in full work, shes finished her round of ulcer medication and shes on a maintenance program. Theres going to be a little trial and error for that but a plan is in the works to control her ulcers. Seems Jez is just a thinker or rather an over thinker she must get that from me. She’s been doing well both on the flat and over jumps at home so it was time to school off property. Step one, ride over to a local barn and school in their jump ring. Which is exactly what happened. Sammy rode Jez to Covered bridge (I drove over) it’s on the far side of our farm and its where Circe did her first schooling Jumper show this summer. There were a few jumps set up when we got there but we rearranged them and put them down to Jez height. We started with 2″ and 2″3. One cross rail, one plank jump, one oxer and one vertical with canter poles. The jumps at covered bridge are colorful and we stuck some colorful jump blocks under the vert and the plank both to be used as a ground poles and for a little desensitization to jumping over weird stuff.

After a quick warm up Sammy took Jez over the cross rail. Yeah, she pretty much trotted over it cuz it wasn’t high enough for her (probably 18 inches) so on to the orange vertical with canter poles. Jez was not sure about this jump at first so we lowered one side and she went over like a champ. In fact she thought it was a 4 footer. She’s still figuring out how to tell how high a jump is. To her most are big and she over jumps them. Once she figured out the jump we put it back to a vertical and Sammy moved on to the cross rail to plank combination. Jez had never before seen a plank jump and wasn’t sure about it so Sammy had her acknowledge it. Stopping in front of it and tell her to “touch it, touch it, touch the jump!”  She did and then they jumped it, easy peasy.  She was a little rushy with the double but figured it out and then went back to the vertical and then the oxer. Then we moved the vertical up. Turns out we were schooling her 2″9′ on the vert with out realizing it. I found the measuring stick after we were done. So Jezebel schools 2″9′ now and she did it off property. She has tons of scope to go much higher but we want a sane, happy horse so were gonna keep them lower for now while we work on her learning her new job.

Sammy’s going to start the grid work this week with her. I’d like to school her again at Covered Bridge this month and then get her off property to school somewhere we have to trailer into.  We (Michelle, Sammy and I) have a plan for miss Jezebel to keep her moving forward in her jumping progress (her flat work too), keep her bad ulcer belly under control and keep her sane and happy. Shes got real potential to do great things, she shows amazing promise as a serious Jumper and i have a dedicated team in place to get her there.

If you listen closely a horse will tell you what kind of job they want. I try to listen, i never want to be that person  who tries to pound a square peg into a round hole. I’m cool with adjusting my wants in favor of dealing with the horse i actually have. I have Jezebel and Jezebel has spoken. She wants to be a jumper. She loves to jump. She’s extremely athletic, she rocks back and springs herself over the jumps getting amazing height in the process. She also loves doing it, she gets bored with too much flat work and really wants to go, go, go. Maybe thats the Seattle Slew in her. I hear Slew babies work it all out in the air in their second careers and Jez is no exception to that. In any event, exciting things on the horizon for Jezzy-Belly and i’m excited about the possibilities and all the places we will go.