Jumping? Done. Show schedule? Set. Horse? Sound. Let's do this.

**edit**  I've had this written up for 2 weeks.  TWO WEEKS.  The issue?  Apparently I forgot to hit post.  Dumbass here.  I have a lot of updates since this too, so stay tuned
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I am coming out of these last 2 weeks with some really positive feels.  Mia is developing real muscle, I am developing some real muscle, Mia is actually starting to do real dressage again, pole work has gone well, we jumped and App is shedding like crazy.  I intended on riding on Monday but when I got to the barn, App was exploding with hair so he got a good long grooming session with the shedding blade.  When one touched him afterward, he didn't shoot hair off of his body.  Win!  Not to say it won't be the same tonight, but at least for 24 hours he wasn't that bad.  Ha!

You know that time when you are super excited about a dressage ride and you finally have someone to video you and you know it isn't great but it is better than it has been?!  And then you watch the video and cringe?  Yeah, that was me.  Hubby came out and I threw my phone at him and said "MEDIA!"  So he obliged and took some video, so all I have is video screen shots. Because seriously, how are we still this bad?  I thought Mia was collecting and loading her hocks.  I am sure she is more than she was, but she is so far downhill.  I thought she was sitting in her canter and starting to come up, but the video doesn't show it.  Blah.  Though I am not letting it tear down the positive feels, I think we still have made tremendous progress so we are going to keep working at it.

Mia went on her first trail ride of the spring and she was a rock star.  No spooking, no going fast, just was her superstar self and showed the 2 other horses how it was supposed to be done.  Ha!  It makes me so happy that the wiggly weirdo I started with has become such a solid citizen.  I remember barely being able to go down the road because ROCK!  STICK!!  TREE!! With lots of random transportations that left us 5-10 feet from where we had been moments prior.  I think when I finally get out to do some real fitness and cross country, we will really make some serious progress.

Mia and I have been doing cavaletti for a while now, working on striding and my position.  I finally had access to some standards and a (single) pole so a small course was set up.  A simple set of 3 jumps, 1 stride apart.  2 cavaletti at the ends and the actual jump in the middle. My original intention was to just go to 2'9" and call it a night since we haven't jumped any height since last year.  Except Mia wasn't trying.  She was a little rushy over the poles and she was cantering over the 2' height of the middle jump.  Not even jumping, just putting in a big stride.  Alright then.

I bumped it up to 2'6" and she was simply stepping over it.  There was no real effort being given, just ho hum, whatever.  After doing that a half dozen times, I bumped it up again to 3'.  Mia finally started jumping it, but it was so easy. She was jumping like it was a 2'6" jump.  Barely putting any effort into it and not loading her hocks before the jump.  Dude, like this is a 3' jump.  Can we put a little more effort into it?

I have lots of media but need to find time to upload so it may be it's own post.  We have a show on the 13th so we are coming down to crunch time!