Jack learns to jump & Sparkie goes for a drive..

Hello! As per usual, these two happenings were meant to be two blogs, but oww I just forget :( Anyhoo..last Monday I had a day off work, so I went up the yard and decided to have a little jumping session on Jack :) Obviously with him being 4, I don't jump him very often or very high, but he's been doing a lot of hacking and schooling later and really trying hard for me, as his schooling has been struggling quite a bit and been quite challenging for him, so as a reward for being a good boy and getting back on track, I decided that he could have a little play over some jumps because he really loves his jumping! Now anyone who has seen Jack jump will know he really does not have a natural jump at all bless him, his feet go in all directions and he usually ends up taking the whole jump with him when he lands, haha...good job he's confident! Recently though, he's gradually started getting better and I can feel a definite improvement on the rare occasions I do actually jump him..Monday definitely proved how much he's already come on. He warmed up lovely, a little bit fidgety with his head but he always gets quite cross for a bit if he has to wear his fly veil, mardy boy! He was probably the best he's behaved in a while though, so I was happy. Then we moved onto jumping.. started off with them really small, about 1ft, which at first he jumped lovely(Yes, he actually JUMPED then, instead of just falling over the top, haha, wahey!) but after a few attempts he seemed to get really bored and was putting no effort it at all, so I put it up slightly. He was SO much better when the jump was slightly bigger (only about 2ft still!), with a little tap on the shoulder so he knew where to take off, he was picking his feet up lovely and trying so hard..he loved it! Good Jack :)

Then on Thursday (another day off!), me and Emma planned to go cross country schooling...well, that plan kind of went down the drain.. got ponies all loaded up and set off to Eland Lodge, but when we got there the rain was torrential... the ground was too slippy for us to risk it, we would have only been able to trot round and not get full use of the course, so it wasn't worth it! I was pretty gutted as it was my one aim for this summer to go there, but never mind :) Instead we took them for a little hack! Sparkie was so good travelling in the trailer for at least and hour and a half, and he was so calm when we unloaded him, even though there were huge lorries on a busy road next to the car park, he didn't even bother to look at them..I was so proud of him, he is so much more settled and sensible nowadays! Sunny was a bit sweaty as he's never travelled for that long before, but he soon settled down and both ponies were brilliant. Sparkie especially loved having a play in the water...I think he would have stayed there all day, ahaha!