Goldielocks Jumping w/ Zander

I looooove Zander!! He was fantastic on Thursday when we were outside. I was expecting him to be pretty crazy because sometimes just riding in the outdoor ring can change everything, but he was great! He sort of reminds me of Pony when he gets going and not like Java who gets head strong and suddenly you don't have any breaks left. He is easier to trust than Java as well, for whatever reason I still can't figure out.

Our first jumping exercise was a "goldielocks" thing where we approached the jump to slow, then to fast and lastly "just right". Zander did really well, we didn't have any chips at either of the incorrect paces so even though they were slightly awkward, they were not terrible. The two warm up courses we did consisted of either left or right circles only. So the circle starts at A goes over 1, completes at A and then down around over 2,3 and down to C to start that last circle over 4.

Small jumps, but I got in trouble a few times for giving to much release over such tiny jumps. Ooops, same problem last time.

When we had to trot to swap leads though he rips his head up, he could knock your teeth out if you weren't sitting up properly, so that's not good. He's saddle must not be fitting properly because he's got one of those awful foam pads underneath it. They just make the saddle even tighter and fit worse, so maybe it pinches or something during the downward transition. But since he's owned by K I don't know what, if anything, I can do about it. we used on Diesel and look what happened with him. Although there's no way to know if that was from the foam pad or not.

Here are the two full courses we did, course one has eleven jumps in it, jump one is the one we practiced different canter speeds over. We started with the warm up circles to the right, then over the 3 strides (we had some problems with getting a good take off over the 2nd jump in it) and then do the circles over the left.

Kokanee news: he has made it home safely to BC and was reunited with Roxy.

I finally took a photo of the tall boots I bought from L, they're just an old model of the Ariat heritage line, sadly I'm going to have to get them stretched and possibly have the calves adjusted because I can't zip them up any more than just under half way. She says they must have shrunk a bit sitting in the cold garage all winter. They are fairly well broke in, so once they fit getting ankle blisters won't be a problem. I hate having such wide calves, it makes trying to find and fit tall boots the biggest pain in the ass.
Now I have to figure out what to do about leasing. It's only an extra $40 a month to get four extra rides, the only problem is work. Having two jobs = having to mangers who seem to go out of their way to screw up plans. ie. Oh, you can't work Thursday evenings because you're at the barn? Here, work the next 3 Thursday evenings in a row plus all the Saturday mornings just to make absolutely sure you can't see your horse! t('-'t) (can you see the little face? the t's are his arms and middle fingers). I'm not so sure if the extra money from the 2nd liquor store is actually worth it. I'll quit by the start of August i think. Maybe I'll be able to get in at least one small local show before fall.