We Went to the Moon

     I hate myself for not getting pictures or videos, so I apologize in advance.

     Malachi and I decided to jump yesterday. He wasn't so happy when I threw on the ol' close contact, but I put a bump pad underneath for good measure. On our walk down to the ring, he spotted those jumps and stopped dead. I felt kind of bad for the poor guy because he is really big and his coat is pretty thick despite the weather's heat but I promised I would only jump him a couple of jumps.

     As our warm-up went along he got really anxious because he knew he was getting closer to the time where he'd have to go over one of those scary crosspoles. After some reassuring, he walked up to them and knocked them over, defiantly. Typical Malachi. I could tell he was ready to tackle them.

     The first jump was a tiny pink crossrail, and I wouldn't call it a jump if it wasn't to Malachi because he did indeed jump this one. He's beginning to get the hang of trotting these things. Out of natural instinct he wants to canter the last stride or two, but I held him back and he eventually got used to jumping them from the trot. I am very proud of him for being brave. He does these cute little victory bucks, and canters around all collected and excited.

     So I said what the heck and set the jump up to a tiny vertical. He trotted it alright the first couple of times, and I went ahead and let him canter the last couple of strides so he could build confidence. At random, I picked up a big canter and we went at it all the way. He got really excited somewhere around five strides away, taking those normal five strides in two! I swear he jumped this tiny little vertical at least three feet! I would have never imagined he'd want to go this high. Somehow in the midst of this I was able to grab mane or something and stay in the saddle! My mom described his enormous take off to be at least a horse length AWAY from a long take off spot. She said he tucked his back, and threw his legs to his cheekbones. Mission accomplished! Now I know this horse can jump!