I tried something new with Lily yesterday: I rode her with my jumping saddle and her current favorite pad when I schooled with my trainer. I don’t believe I had tried this combination on her before.
Trying a new combination on Lily makes me a little apprehensive. When she disapproves, it isn’t a big deal, unless she decides that something is pinching her when she jumps. Then she bucks. These bucks are more impressive when viewed from the ground than they are for me as the rider. She doesn’t crack her back and she bucks in a straight line, so it doesn’t take much to stay with her except sitting up straight and staying relaxed. However, I would prefer she not do so, not least because I hate causing her any discomfort.
After the first trial jump over some cross-rails, I relaxed. She seemed perfectly happy with the saddle and pad, and I tried to find my balance with the new combination myself.
Recently, when I was reading SeaShe’s essays about taking riding lessons, I noticed her referring to jump straps. I hadn’t used a jump strap in a long time, probably when I was learning not to pull Hap’s mane out by the roots when we jumped. (I remember the first season I didn’t remove most of his mane by his withers. I was so proud of myself.) A jump strap is a piece of leather, frequently an old stirrup leather, that goes around the horse’s neck to give the rider something firm to grip. A mane can be hard to grip firmly enough, and you don’t ever, ever, ever want to use the reins for balance.
My trainer was trying to teach me not to fall back as Lily jumped. I don’t have a lot of recent experience jumping, and I was having a hard time finding my balance in the saddle. Even though this saddle is familiar to me, every combination of saddle, pad and horse feels a little different. So she went and got a jumping strap and put it around Lily’s neck. I glared at it, as one more thing to have to manage.
However, it wasn’t too bad. I used to ride Hap with an automatic release, because I had to keep a feel on the reins as we went to the jump. Yesterday, I found I could ride Lily with a crest release, or rather, one hand firmly through the jumping strap, and the other hand on the outside rein, until we actually jumped. The jumping strap did keep me where I need to learn to be, through some rather big jumps as Lily and I figured out what we were doing.
It is very strange, comparing this part of the process of learning to jump on Lily versus Hap. The biggest difference is that Lily is trained at six in a way that I didn’t achieve with Hap until he was much older. Lily has brakes, which makes the process of learning to jump her seem a lot less risky. She also has a rather phlegmatic approach to jumping, unless, of course, the saddle pinches her. Hap thought jumping was exciting. Lily seems to find it interesting, and even entertaining, but she doesn’t get worked up about it.