Knowing Savvy is a sucked back kind of pony and momentum being kind of your friend in a grid, I knew it might pose a challenge for us. Never the less, I dove in and we were basically getting through a cross rail, one stride to a pole, two strides to a vertical. It never felt forward, or straight, or 'pretty' by any means, but I was trying hard and felt like Savvy just needed to get the hang of it all.
At the same time, we were also trying to see if we could make canter more of a thing that happened as it mostly was not happening. Coach asked for some canter circles before we went back to grid work and Savvy decided her answer to my request would be a lightening fast ninja kick. She has done this manoeuvre before on a much smaller scale. This time it unseated me and I thought I was going to get more acquainted with the ground.
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| No photographic evidence - but many of these manoeuvres later, I am ready for a beer. |
Unfortunately I guess my courage was all used up because I just could not give Savvy the support she needed once the middle pole became a jump as well and we just could not get through it. Ugh.
At that point coach lowered the middle cross rail as low as it could go and I pulled myself together and got through it. After about five attempts, it felt good enough to quit there. Good news for me because I pulled a muscle in my hip from Savvy's fancy moves trying to canter and it was really starting to hurt by this point.
Is it just me or are grids really hard? Is this what everyone in jump lessons is doing? (Am I just particularly horrible at this?/What is wrong with me?/Maybe I should stick to dressage.)
