Why did no one ever tell me!!!!?????

Huge huge huge break through today. I get it. I understand the concept of pace and how it translates into being able to get from one side of the fence to the other. It started during my jump school on Sunday and finalized itself tonight during my lesson. I totally get it, now I just want to know why it has taken 18 years of riding and jumping before anyone found it necessary to share this information with me!!!!???? Seriously.

Okay, so I got my first horse when I was 12, I took a few lessons between then and when I went to college when I was 18, and by a few I probably mean somewhere between 10 and 15 lessons total over 6 years. I was young and a daredevil so we jumped lots and just kinda made stuff up as we went, as you can guess I hit the dirt alot (I would get way ahead of my short necked little Arabian-nugget) So then I went to college and I got to take riding lessons as my gym class (how stinkin' cool right???) and I rode school horses in lessons, but I never remember anything about getting the horse to the fence other than pointing them at it and making sure I kept my eyes up and leg on.

So for a long time I thought that SPEED = GETTING OVER THE FENCE. So not true. You need to have impulsion, but impulsion does not equal speed. It just equals energy and the ability to do whatever is asked.

I'm getting it, I've felt what its supposed to be and we're getting it more often then we are not. We still had a few jumps tonight where Bastian picked up the slack big time, but most of them were awesome. We were cantering a 2 stride line and after we did as x-rails a few times Kristin makes the back one a vertical and it was huge, just bamm, right up to 2'3"ish or however friggin huge it was. I was a good little student and didn't say a word....at least until after we had jumped through the line successfully. At which I point I stopped pointed at the fence and said, "That is Friggin Huge."

We proceeded to jump that line (with the other fence being made into a 2'3" vertical also lots more and to the right we hit it lovely every time. Found our spots had nice ins and nice outs. :) To the left he was being a bit squirrelly over the first fence, he kept giving it the hairy eyeball and kinda spooking a little but we managed to stay in the line and jump both fences every time (although a few times I almost jumped the standard on the second fence) and we were having straightness issues but we got over and he was basculing beautifully over the fences :)

I actually saw some of my spots!!! Yup, sure did and I put my leg on appropriately. I also did a few other things over some of the fences that were good decisions, but I have no recollection of doing them, they just happened so at least my instincts are to make good decisions :) lol

Kristin has been trying to get me understand this pace thing since I started back to serious jumping this year and I understood the theory behind it, but I didn't get it because I had never really gotten Bastian there and felt consistently what it was supposed to be like. But now I'm totally getting it. Tonight I even half-halted correctly (I used my leg when I said "HEY!") and got him in this awesome sweet spot and we just cruised over the jumps. Super major riding break through!!!!

I wish I had knew this concept years ago, its making this whole jumping thing way less stressful for me, it all makes sense, now I can progress :) So this becomes rule number 7: PACE! YOU HAVE IT OR YA' CAN'T JUMP.

This was the perfect end to a wonderful Tuesday. I found out this morning that I was given Tenure by the school board (this also marks what is probably (and sadly) the longest I have ever held the same job consistently) and then after my lesson I went to fuel up my car and found out I had $3.41 off of gas per gallon, gas in Ohio was 3.23 a gallon so who got 30 gallons of free gas???? I DID!!! Thats $100 worth of fuel for my little Kia and it cost me nada. Now I'm just finishing up my blog and waiting for the new episode of Justified to come on. What a good day.

BN Eventing, be warned. Here. We. Come. ;P