Today was in many ways a wonderful day, great company, the alarm went of crazy early, I was awake from about 3am and the alarm went off at 6am, I was up and making chili in the shuttle chef for a hot lunch, buns, beef Jerky, hot chocolate and water plus fruit was packed up along with chairs, wool blankets, winter gear  and I meet up with the girls and we loaded up the horse and off we went to a jumping clinic, only one was jumping and two were watching and spending the day listening and learning.

Now the farm and area is awesome! The ladies we meet are helpful, kind and some of them are bust a gut funny, the horses were mixed, all lovely but some were very green, some were old hands and others were just loving it..

The day ran smoothly, things were on time and everyone got their time in the saddle..

Only one hiccup.. what we went for, is not what we got out of it..

Now you have to understand the information was steady, the instructions were good, the instructor was very good at shifting things around for each rider and horse team.

But everyone else went to learn to jump, or to expose the horse to something different or to have a fun day out..

We went to learn how to jump better, not jump better for in shows, or jump better to work towards titles or ribbons, none of that mattered to us.. we wanted to learn how to jump better with info that could be brought home to the farm and our trails etc.

The first thing we learned is that we are using the “wrong” saddle, the “wrong bridle and bit” the wrong seating, and yet at home on the farm, and on the trails, we are jumping regular and often.

That’s were it gets tricky, you see you want to learn, I mean you paid to learn from someone who is very good and knowledgeable in the field.

The trick is to know that you are in fact working on different fields..  I know, I know, it should not be,  It never fails to amaze me when someone says, you can’t do such and such..

But we are doing it..

well, you have to be doing it wrong..

Why wrong.. because you can’t do that western

But we are doing it western

Well its not safe, it has to be English..

How the hell did my grandfather, my uncles and aunts and my mother, myself, my brothers and thousands of the rest of us somehow all be able to jump and ride our thousands of horses in the west then..

It was a moment of huh, you see the wonderful ladies stepped up, they helped us with tack and they did it with smiles and we were grateful..

An yet, there was a small part that was also doing a slow head shake..

Sometimes it pays to have a better understanding on where they are coming from and a very clear understanding on what it is you are wanting out of event..

It was a good time in many ways but when you don’t have the same goals, it just can’t be a meld moment..

On the other hand, I can’t wait to take what I learned about flat work and use it in my regular workout with Brandy and Sam in WESTERN tack  LOL