I had a few moments over the last few rides that required I wear my big-girl britches.  It's amazing how, before the broken tailbone, the anhydrosis, the joint injections and the move to the deep south, I was cantering courses with my Kid and now trotting small fences mildly horrifies me.

On Friday, BO came to ride when I was about half-way through my ride.  We'd done w/t/c in one direction and over our trot poles.  He started to lose his shit, to become lofty on that front end, and I just kept pushing him forward and trying to keep the pattern variant, so he wouldn't know my next move.  I actually was able to get a nice little right-lead canter out of him, which I think surprised both of us.  The cost?  I bit the snot out of my lip.

I didn't ride on Saturday, in favor of blowing money and riding helicopters.

Sunday, we did the downward transitions that we neglected from the day before.  I'm not sure why he was in such a snit, but the dude did not really want to participate and gave me grievance when I asked for the canter.  Fuck you, canter.

Last night, I wanted to jump.  I'm so jealous of you jumping fools.  Your cross-country courses and your planks and your oxers and your roll backs and your rings.  I have one jump and I try to make the best of it.  I took the poles down from the trot pole exercise and set them about a stride out from the cross rail, then warmed the Kid up on the flat.  When it came time to jump, tracking left was beautiful.  I mean, picture-perfect exercise.  Trot in, canter out, with a little bounce at the pole.  The Kid loved it.

We did that a couple times and changed direction.  He trotted over the ground pole and, as we were in mid-air, I realized something wasn't quite right.  Instead of bouncing the second ground pole, Archie jumped it as a stinking spread.  It was not pretty.  I grabbed a lot of mane.  I slowed him down the second time and it was reasonable, but still did not possess the beauty of the other direction.

I dismounted, raised the jump cups, pushed the ground poles closer to the base, remounted, oogled them, dismounted, lowered the jump cups and remounted.

And I present to you, the 18" crossrail that scared the bejesus out of me:

For the record, he jumped it huge and beautifully and landed in a nice canter.