Jellybean rides in her first ever dressage lesson and jumps over some baby jumps!

Exciting news right?! I am so behind on riding updates!

We initially planned the dressage lesson a couple of weeks ago, but the weather didn't work in our favor. 

So I got there early and tacked up the Bean. We lunged and worked on transitions, then went in the other direction. She really settles in the circles, and working on transitions is very familiar work for her. After a bit of lunging, I mounted and we walked around. Then I went back to the same place we were working on the circle and worked under saddle. 

Walk, trot, canter, trot, walk, change direction, trot, canter, trot, walk. Jellybean is very unbalanced on the straight lines, but she is better in the circle. While we were finishing out warm up, Sarah arrived.

We talked briefly about the state the horses were in, and then repeated our warm up while Sarah watched. Then we had a brief chat and then started working on more transitions. 

The moral of the story, Sarah suggested we focus on transitions and attentiveness. And keep waiting for her to grow a little bit more! My dressage saddle was not fitting her well at all, we were moving up onto her shoulders. Luckily, Sarah suggested a pad would improve the situation. 

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A couple of weeks later, I got the opportunity to work Jellybean over some baby jumps and see how she liked it! We trotted over some poles and she wasn't quite game, but she tried. Then we trotted through some more poles. And some more poles. 

Eventually we set up a tiny X and trotted her over it. She was not impressed. She wanted to bury herself at the base and then make an awkward little hop over the jump. One day at a time :) To finish out the ride, we jumped over a 12 inch vertical. 

Jellybean started off by knocked her leg into the pole, and quickly realized she needed to pick up her feet as we limped off. The next attempt was really nice! I should have stopped there, but alas.

We came around again and I didn't get her perfectly straight and she bulged out to the left. We stopped and walked over it, but Jellybean is a smart lady and remembered that trick the next time around. We went over it a few more times, until she stopped trying to bulge out and called it a night.

Video for your viewing pleasure

This will definitely be something we revisit, but video evidence of our first time :)