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.