Well. It was all going a bit smoothly, wasn’t it?

I really need to learn to trust my own judgement and not let other people rattle me. My usually Thursday night jumping partners were not about tonight. We had agreed last week to do some grid-work, over very small fences, partly to rebuild Dino’s confidence after my over-facing him somewhat. Claire was about today but the other two ladies weren’t and instead a couple of the teenagers joined us and a couple of others. There were a lot of people riding in the school and Dino was a bit fazed by this so I should just have left it really but I’d put all the bloody fences out so I wanted to give it a go.

We cantered over the poles on the ground. Fine. Striding looked ok. Put a single fence up, I felt it was fine for Dino. One of the girls (who does a lot of showjumping) started saying she thought the stride was too short and to be fair, her pony was jumping very fast and very flat (in a pelham with roundings) and it probably was too short for her. But it was good for Dino.

We put a second fence up so it was pole > stride > fence > stride > fence > pole. I went down this once and it was good. She insisted the striding was too short and not ‘correct show jumping distance’ … and set the fences wider apart … and I jumped it again :withstupid: …. and he did one canter stride a really funny half panicked stride and I SMACKED him in the mouth. He totally took me by surprise and I properly socked him 😥

After that I said ok let me try a single crosspole and I couldn’t get him over it, not set tiny tiny tiny with me riding him 😥 I hoped off and got him to jump it in hand, albeit reluctantly, and we left it at that. Soooo cross with myself for not trusting my own judgement.

*sigh* The amazing Claire also feels bad for not doing something, although it was my call and not hers. She’s going to take us to the gallops on Saturday so he can do something fun and change the scenery a bit and then I spoke to Claudia, we have a lesson on Monday anyway so it’s back to pole work and tiny cross poles to rebuild his confidence.

All fixable I’m sure. But I hate it when you do something like that – I knew it wasn’t going to work so WHY did I let the bolshy teenager have her way? It’s me that organised bloody jumping this evening so I feel a little bit peeved that she didn’t feel like maybe she should work round me, but ultimately it’s on my head.

Poor baby. He was pretty grumpy until I got the herb bucket out. That cheered him up a bit :wub: