Jumping photos - as promised

... well I never said it was going to be pretty! These are the photos from my second jumping lesson last night and as you can see we started off with a few issues around our technique i.e. Sam would gawk at the fence, stop and then suddenly cat leap it. My instructor was quite impressed that I managed to stay on but I think it was a natural instinct not to hit the floor from such a height!

Warming up


As is often the case with Sam and I though things got much better by the end of the session. My big issue (which was making Sam worse) was that I have not jumped for about 14 years so I am a bit of a wimp to say the least. This meant that when Sam fidgeted going in I started to panic and we just wound each other up (hence the cat leaps). My instructor came up with a great piece of advice which was - the rider is in charge of the lead in and exit from a fence (can't remember the technical terms) but the horse is in charge of the rest (unless you are John Whitaker). So she told me to sit like a mouse and just bring him in confidentaly with my legs i.e. stop fiddling with the steering as we came in. So my mantra as we come into the fence has changed from "God its big, God its big" to "I am a mouse, I am a mouse". And it seems to be working!