Riding the Wonder Horse

I had a couple of good sessions with Apache this week. On Thursday I worked on backing up straight. He has been giving me fits with that but finally decided to cooperate. It's always surprising when after weeks of work your horse finally just does what you've been asking him to do.

Today I worked on jumping through the in-and-out. We started out at 36 feet but eventually got to 24 feet between the jumps. He never ran out and only clipped the poles once or twice.

We were having more trouble with the 36 foot in-and-out than we were with the shorter distance. He got perturbed with the 36 foot gap as he wasn't hitting the second jump at the right stride. We took a break to let him overcome his frustration and then we tried again. He had no trouble with the second try. he was so light and responsive on the bit that I was able to give him his head between jumps without fear of a run out or a miss stride. When we shortened the gap between jumps to 24 feet, he went through them with ease.

One never knows with Apache when he's going to perform and when he isn't. He was remarkably calm today. Must have been something in the air.