Busy couple of days Sunday/Monday!

Hopalong and I have had a busy couple of days!

On Sunday we were at Edinburgh Equestrian Centre (Dalkeith) for our riding club's Party in the Park. It was a really fun day with dressage, SJ and XC lessons for members as well as some group hacks and a BBQ. Heidi was leading two hacks out- the second one involving a wee play over the XC fences at the end. :D

Everything went really well, everyone seemed to have a good time and the sun even shone! :)

Tonight we went down to SNEC for a David Gatherer SJ lesson. I really like David as a trainer, he always knows when to push us, when to hold us back and how to really build our confidence.

Tonight's exercises were working on related distances, both on straight lines and curving dog legs. Started off with poles on the ground, then straight up to 1m! Having entered our first PN at the end of the month (XC can be up to 1m and SJ up to 1.05m) I was determined to be positive about riding at 1m!

Heidi was jumping really nicely and apart from a wee moment where we both kind of fell asleep and didn't have quite enough energy in the canter so dithered through in a rather unelegant way (they all stayed up though! ;) ), we did it much better the next time around!

We finished up doing a wee course with all the fences up at 1m, jumped them all with no panics or problems and was giving Heidi big pats when we finished to be told by David that one of the uprights was sitting at 1.10m and the spread fence at 1.10m with back rail at 1.15m!!! His point being the height was absolutely not an issue, get the line, engine and rythymn right and Heidi can sort the jumping out no bother!

So very pleased with her this evening. :) Need to remember to ride positively and forwards to get a nice, flowing jump and no panicking as I know we can do it.

Next stop Auchinleck intro on Sunday! :)