palace of winds

So yesterday I sent in my entry form for a cross-country jumping clinic that’s being held a week from Sunday. After I dropped it in the box I figured I should, you know, try my horse over a few fences before taking him.

Last night I put out two cavalletti to lunge him over. If you’re wondering, cavalletti look something like this. The barn has nice sturdy wooden ones, which is good because Ev is a bit of a pole killer. I started at the lowest height — just groundpoles — to get him warmed up. Then I bumped one up to the middle height. When he was comfortable with that, I switched the other to the highest. Even at their highest they’re quite low — he could easily walk over them. Perfect baby stuff.

He loved it. He was very engaged, ears up, and nicely forward. The last time around he got his striding perfect to the higher pole and gave just the cutest little jump over it. I’d originally planned to ride him after the lunge work, but it was beastly hot and I was just so happy with his effort that I stopped him right there and made a gigantic fuss over him. He looked very proud of himself.

Around lunchtime today I was hit with this total excitement to go back out there tonight. Six months ago that wouldn’t've been remarkable, but the change in atmosphere at the barn this summer has robbed me of a lot of my oomph. I’m relieved to feel that passion again.