Hopeful Jumpers: A Lesson with Big Red

July 23, 2012

A Lesson with Big Red

I had a lesson yesterday on Zeke, the four year old Belgian warmblood who is for sale but is worth far more than I will be able to afford for a very long time.

I've hacked Zeke since my last lesson and I've been impressed with how much improvement he's been showing. He was pretty strong the first time I rode him, and very bouncy, but recently he's settled into a much calmer pace.

Jumping did not go all that well unfortunately. I had forgotten my gloves at home and by the time we were jumping both Zeke's neck and the braided leather reins were both dripping sweat. I couldn't hold onto the reins to save my life, and the first couple courses I got so distracted with constantly trying to regroup my reins that I forgot to ride the horse with the rest of my body and it was a wreck.

Our best course came when I sort of said "screw it" and let the reins go. I focused instead on riding him with my seat and legs like he needs and sure enough we had a much better round. Lesson learned.

I'm castrating a horse tomorrow, fingers crossed it all goes well!

3 comments:

RuthJuly 24, 2012 at 1:43 AM
Zeke is a nice looking horse :) Good Luck for tomorrow!
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LeslieJuly 24, 2012 at 9:05 PM
I don't if it's just that he's wet, but Zeke looks like a liver chestnut with two hind socks, so I automatically love him. ;-)

Good luck tomorrow!
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RiderWriterJuly 25, 2012 at 5:05 PM
This is why I love your blog... Photo of a gorgeous (wet) horse who you've gotten to ride. I'm jealous, as usual. Things went pretty well, except you had trouble with slipping reins. You try something different, and wind up with a good course.

And then, BAM, you announce you're chopping the balls off an animal! LOLOL, only here would I read that! But good luck, I'm sure your BF will never feel safe again once you've mastered this technique. ;-)
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Quinus is a 17 year old Hanovarian gelding who was born in Germany. He spent the first part of his life competing in the jumpers in several different countries in Europe before traveling over to the United States a few years ago.

I found Q when I began looking for my next horse to get me back into the jumper ring. This time around I wanted a horse I could pick up where I left off, rather than starting all over with a green horse like Hero initially was. Q officially became my third horse on September 18, 2020.

Qbert has turned into quite the interesting horse. He's fancy, athletic, and talented and he has carried me around my biggest jumper classes so far. He can also be quirky and challenging and our journey has had its share of frustrations along with our successes. It hasn't always been easy, but I've certainly learned more from him than I would have with a packer! I never would have guessed the path our journey together would take when I first got him, and that includes a growing interest in dressage lessons and shows as well.

Hero joined the team on July 2, 2014. He is a 15 year old thoroughbred who spent his first couple years in race training, but after being slow and failing to get his gate card, he was retired before ever entering a race.

Hero came to me with only a handful of rides outside of the track, and training my first green horse was an interesting learning process for us both. He began his show career in the hunter ring, then progressed to switch to the jumper ring, and even moved up a few levels. I was thrilled to return to the jumper ring, and even happier that Hero seemed to be enjoying himself as well. We became a great team and even won year end Championships in both of our jumper divisions in 2017.

Unfortunately Hero suffered a career ending ligament injury in October 2017, and after over a year of rehab and an attempted return to jumping it became clear that jumping is not in his best interest.

Hero is a big friendly goof of a horse who loves to be around people, and ends up charming everyone he meets with his puppy-dog personality. He's very level-headed and calm and is just as well behaved on a hunter pace, at a wedding, out on the trails, or at a new show facility as he is at his home barn. Even though he can't jump anymore, I'm still lucky to have such a great second horse!

Horses have been my lifelong passion; however, it wasn't until college that I was able to take riding lessons and be around horses on a regular basis. My equestrian career began when I joined my college's IHSA hunt seat team, which lead to me leasing and eventually buying my first horse, Prince. Since then, I have been happily spending as much time riding and being around horses as possible.

In addition to my lovely horses, I have a dachshund x terrier mix named Fred, who is one of the cutest dogs ever with a fun personality much larger than he is. Loki is our goofy and playful Australian Shepard who loves to play fetch all day.

The troublemaker of the group used to be my cat Munch who is very mischievous and way too smart for his own good. Lately he has been getting a run for his money from our newest cat Ace (also commonly called by his nickname Meowser). I raised him from a week-old kitten ever since he was found stuck inside a wall. Even as a grown-up cat he's still crazy as ever and still loves snuggling with his human parents. My second cat Luna takes after her Harry Potter namesake, happily living in her own special world. She is very sweet and friendly and doesn't seem to realize that she is any different, despite having a hind leg amputated as a kitten due to a chronic, nonhealing femur fracture. She's the shyest of the group, but also has the loudest meow when it's time for dinner!