Max Tries His Turn at Free Jumping

For whatever reason (certainly not because of age!!), I kind of move along a slow and steady path of more classical training, like the kind you find in books. And then, along comes Jessika and throws in a creative twist that gives me pause for thought. Like today! She calls me down to the arena and tells me to bring my camera. And there she has the jumping standards up and Max in the arena free jumping!! Old, hollow-back, high-head Saddlebred, Max! Now I had a dressage diva once try to lunge Max over a small cavaletti and he refused. She said, "he would never be able to jump! He just wasn't built for it"! So I never gave it another thought.

But there he was, jumping and lovin' it! (or the treats he received after each jump!) Max was clearly enjoying this new challenge. And honestly, it's not something I would have ever thought to do with him, having already been told he couldn't do it!

That may sound like a major character flaw, not being gutsy enough to try new things like that, but in my defence, I didn't grow up with horses. I learned late in life, from books by Jane Savoie and Betsy Steiner; and the occasional lesson (from the dressage diva), and I would not want to push my old horse to do something an "expert" told me he couldn't do. I am cautious

In general, I'd have to say I am more conservative, by-the-book when it comes to training horses. So it's really nice to have (young!) Jessika come in and throw me these curve balls - the horses sure seem to have fun with it! (Although I draw the line when she gets out the scissors and wants to get creative with their hair!!)