With The Labels

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

A lovely evening with no homework and an arena full of jumps? It is definitely time to ride Penny. Tonight I decide to work on jumping grids, which is a series of jumps one after another. Some right after, or some a couple strides after. I will keep the jumps low, maxing out no higher than 3 feet, so Penny can focus on her form over the jumps and her footwork.

Walking out to the barn, I find Penny in her stall, munching on hay. All the barn lights are on, and James is busily sweeping the aisle.

My older brother looks up, taking an earbud out of his ear "Hey, Care, going to ride Penny?"

I nod to him, leading Penny out of her stall and onto cross ties. With a quick brush off, I start to tack Penny up in jump tack. I make sure to take extra time putting on her boots. I don't want to take any chances with her hurting herself. Because knowing Penny, she would find a way.

Once she is all tacked up and standing patiently in the aisle, I throw on my helmet and boots before leading my horse out into the arena.

James follows closely behind us. "Mind if I watch?" He asks, leaning against the fence as I lead Penny into the ring. 

"Of course. You haven't seen me and Penny in action in a long time." I inform him, sticking my foot in the stirrup and swinging my leg over the saddle. 

I adjust myself in the tack before allowing her to walk on. We take several laps around the arena at a walk before I finally pick up the trot. The more consistent I am with riding Penny, the stronger she gets. I can already feel how much better she is moving and her topline is muscling up beautifully. I can feel James watching Penny and I intensely. My older brother has always enjoyed being around horses and watching me ride or my father train, but he never expressed any interest in actually wanting to ride. I guess he never really had any time because his focus was always on either academics, football, or his most recent girlfriend. 

After working on her trot through circles, leg yields, and serpentines I ask Penny for the canter. Asking her for collections and extensions within the gate, Penny does not miss a beat. I think she is happy to finally be back into full work. 

Penny does a flying lead change near the center of the arena and we work on her canter the other direction. We pop over a few crossrails and low verticals before I am finally satisfied enough to start working the grids. 

"Hey James could you lower the last two jumps in the grid about four inches. I will want them raised once we get going again." I ask my brother, letting Penny stretch her neck at the walk. I let the reins out to the buckle and hold on loosely with one hand. 

"Sure thing." He says casually, climbing over the fence. Quickly walking over to the jumps, James lowers them before stepping off to the side, waiting for me to get going again.

"Thanks." I pick up the reins and ask for the trot again, making my way around the arena to the jumps. The grid is set up so we trot in and canter out. The first jump in the grid is a crossrail bounce to a vertical, then one stride to an oxer. 

Holding on securely with my legs as we approach the first jump, I soften the reins and take my weight out of the tack. I don't go completely into a two point, more of a three point, just slightly off of her back. She easily jumps the first one and doesn't have a second to think before immediately jumping the vertical next. I feel Penny hesitate slightly in the one stride to the oxer. Clucking, I sit in the tack and give her a big squeeze with my legs just as extra encouragement. I take every jump as a schooling opportunity. One thing that the jumpers taught me is that the fence doesn't have to look pretty, it just has to get done. The first time you work with an exercise it is meant to get your horse settled in and the second time around you can work out the kinks.

Penny takes off awkwardly over the oxer and I grab some of her mane in order to not get jumped out of the tack. The one thing with her is that it takes a long time to get used to her jump. Trust me, she would jump the moon, but it takes a certain rider to stay in motion with her over the fences. On the landing side, I send her forward a few strides before collecting her back up. Schooling on landing, especially with the less confident horses, helps assure they won't make the same mistakes the second time around. 

We jump through the grid one more time before James raises it a few more inches. Now, the oxer was at about 2'10". After running through the grid this time I was only going to make it a little bigger. Penny was being quite good and I don't want to overwork her. 

She trots into the grid perfectly and jumps each fence with inches to spare. With Penny, once she understands what you want her to do, she doesn't question her job. She just does it, leaving full trust in you.

James raises it one more time to 3'3" and as he does this, it allows Penny and I a quick break. I take a deep breath and pat her on the neck. She was pretty sweaty so after this run through, if it went well, I would call it quits for today.

As we approach the jumps, I have no doubt in my mind that Penny won't jump the grid perfectly. She launches over each jump, almost mocking the fact that they were so small. I laugh to myself and hold on tightly to mane so I don't fly out of the tack. On the landing side of the oxer, Penny flips her head and throws out a huge buck. I quickly recollect my horse and slow her to a walk. 

James and I were both laughing. I pat Penny and kick my feet out of the stirrups, walking over to my brother who is standing in the middle of the arena. I stop her right in front of him. James reaches up and rubs Penny's face.

"She is looking great. Seems really happy to be jumping." He smiles up at me, patting Penny on the neck.

I grin at my older brother. "You can say that again!"

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Hope you guys liked this chapter! It was fun to finally finish this chapter up. What my schedule for writing consists of is making a rough outline of each chapter then going back to fill in the details later. I typically save the horse chapters for editing last because they are the hardest for me to write :/

Thanks for reading!