What's that? oh, right. Rust.

So. I had my first jumping lesson with Gammon this past Tuesday. Guess what I realized. We hadn't jumped in 5 weeks. Not good. The last time we jumped was at Fair Hill actually. I guess if you count:
 2 weeks spent in dressage bootcamp
+  1 week when he broke my jump bridle the week he came back so that day we didn't jump,  then Irene hit so I was at the horse center (aka, no jumps available to me)
+ 1 week while I was running around like crazy trying to get myself packed for college
+ 1 week when i was first at college and it was raining like crazy so i couldn't pull any jumps out.
___
5 weeks
So there I was, Tuesday afternoon cantering around a ring looking for distances and spots and MAN was i rusty. I'm talking not thinking about balance or rhythm or maintaining a good canter AT ALL. Not really the best intro to a new instructor but what was I to do about it.
Apollo was good as always though, although we did have to have some conversations about getting too excited about the jumps and popping 3-4 feet in the air when it's a 2'6" vertical.
Friday I took him out to the fields to work on his conditioning a bit and to give him a break from the sandbox. I think he's forgotten what real hills were like though because by the time we reached the top of the galloping hill he was definitely panting a bit. And that wasn't even one of the Hills of Death. That'll be next week's surprise.

Far side of the hay field looking toward the top of 

the galloping hill and House Mt.

Walking is fun...

not. Unfortunately, with me being a freshman at college the parking lot is not close. Not at all. So to get to my car to get to the barn I have to walk down 8 flights of stairs, walk a 1/4 of a mile, walk down 3 flights of stairs, walk a 1/4 of a mile across a bridge, then walk up 4 flights of stairs then walk another 1/4 of a mile to my car. Then after riding I have to do all that in reverse to get back. This usually makes me feel justified in eating as much chocolate as I want.

View from the bridge on my walk

Any way, getting back to the horse; I was only able to ride twice before I got to ride with Lynn Symansky! As I have found out, Lynn went to W&L:

"After graduating high school, Lynn was certain she wanted horses to remain in her life, but also valued the importance of an education. She went to Washington & Lee University, one of the country’s best liberal arts universities, and graduated Cum Laude in 2005 with a Bachelors of Science in Business. While at school, she managed to find time to compete her long time partner, “No It Tissant” at the advanced level all four years while also bringing along another young project. She successfully balanced school and her competitive career, and in 2003 was named to the High Performance Winter Training list for the United States Equestrian Team (USET). She and “No It Tissant” attended training sessions with Captain Mark Phillips, Sandy Phillips, and George Morris. That summer, the pair was named to the short list for the 2003 Pan American Games CCI***, and rode as an individual alternate where they finished 10th with a double clear cross country round."

The lesson would have been fantastic had the pollen not been intense and mosquitos all over the place, causing Apollo to be incredibly uncomfortable and he was throwing his head violently whenever we did anything other than walk or slowly trot. 

So hopefully the next time Lynn swings by we'll be able to really show her what we can do, but until then Apollo will be doing lots of moving forward and I will be doing a lot of walking and stair climbing,

Here's to muscular calves!!