Jump lesson report . . . Kal jumped a metre plus course

PolarSkye

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So just two days after we hunted him in the biggest field he's seen in four years (can't vouch for what he did before I bought him, but I know he did hunt), we took Kal to our jump trainer for a jump lesson.

I bathed him yesterday (first time since the hunt . . . he was too wired when we got him home for a proper wash but I did hose his legs off to check for thorns/cuts, etc. . . . but I wanted to wash the sweat off him and make him comfy . . . poor boy shook like a leaf because he thought he was going out again, but calmed right down when he realized he was just having a wash. Wrapped him up warm and bandaged him and put him to bed with his tea.

This morning he was chilled as you like and had eaten up (a result because after previous hunts it has taken him several days to want his hard feed), so I left him on the yard with a large trug full of haylage and started to muck out . . . after he had emptied said trug all over the yard, poo'd on the (emptied) contents and stood with one foot in the trug and the other in a Hitler salute, I decided to put him on the walker ;).

When Z arrived with the lorry, we tacked him and booted him up, chucked a thermatex over him and loaded him and set off for our trainer's yard.

He arrived loaded for bear . . . stomping, tap dancing and kicking seven bells out of the lorry . . . but once we let down the ramp and he realized he wasn't hunting he calmed down so we ran him own the ramp, whipped off his rug, let down his stirrups and led him into the school for Z to get on.

He started out very tucked up and tight (understandable under the circumstances), but once they popped into canter he relaxed, snorted a few times and got down to business.

C (our trainer) had them do some simple fences first (but bigger then we usually start with) and then gradually built up a course with the scariest fillers he had to hand . . . Kal was a superstar . . . the final test was a course of fences at least a metre high and Kal made them look tiny . . . was so, so proud.

I've always known he had scope . . . and now that we've got him enjoying jumping again we're able to really put him to decent-sized fences . . . if we were going to aim him at just SJ fences this coming year, I'd say my goal was to have him jumping 1.20 tracks . . . but as we want to event him, our goal is for him to do at least one 90cm course by the end of the season.

I LOVE MY HORSE!

P

P.S. I'm quite partial to his jockey too . . .
 
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