My elbow has been getting progressively worse despite a lot of PT and other therapy. On Wednesday, I got x-rays which showed nothing and now I have to get an MRI. In complaining talking to my doctor, he said I could resume using my right arm while riding. It’ll take whatever’s wrong longer to heal, but since they’re not even sure what’s wrong with me, there’s not much harm in using my arm. Especially if it’s annoying me this much and cutting off my only consistent form of exercise.
So I put the mule’s bridle on – let me tell you how happy she was about that – and took her up to the ring to do some dressage work. She was a absolutely full of it. We had to have quite a few discussions on halting and downward transitions before we could really get to work. There were some canter poles set up in the ring and every time I took her to them, she popped over them like they were jumps.
Today I put her jump tack on and had my husband set up two little jumps for us. We haven’t jumped since October, so we kept the jumps low and only did them a few times. The mule was absolutely pumped.
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| Can’t trot, must canter |
One of the things I love about jumping with Nilla is that it’s one of the few arena things she really likes doing. And since she is so terrible at cantering, it’s a great way to get a lot of canter practice in with some enthusiasm on her part.
Of course,enthusiasm doesn’t magically make her good at cantering so we had some flailing around turns and bursts into canter that more resembled bucking than a transition. There were a few times I had to skip the jump line and address some cantering behavior before going back to jumping. Nonetheless, she was great for the actual jumping.
She was calm and quite over the jumps with minimal attempts to hurl her head to the ground and pull me down/pull the reins out of my hands. I’ve developed such a defensive style of riding where I sit back much too early and too far since I’m convinced she’s going to root after the jumps. Even though she’s getting a lot better about it, it’s hard for me to train myself out of it. Hopefully I can get us to a jumping trainer for some lessons this summer.
that looks like fun to me! I hear you on the it must be fun part. Good luck with the slant load!
She looks like she's having a BLAST!
I love how her ears fold back of the jump… that just cracks me up!
I'm so glad you got to ride (and jump!)
I actually wish she wouldn't do that. All her pictures looks so angry, but it's really just her concentrating face.
Thanks.
She really was.
Thanks.
Love the position in that last photo! Happy mule wants her jumps! Fingers are crossed the she loves the slant load just as much.
Look how high she jumps over them! She's awesome!
Yes, she massively over jumps these little things. I really need to raise them.
She totally wants to do the jumps.
I'm so happy you had a fun ride! Looks like Nilla had a blast too 🙂
Aerodynamics. No way she could take off with those ears up- too much drag.
Overjump, much?! Woohoo Nilla
Go Nilla! that's how I get Ellie to canter too 🙂
Do you by any chance go to Bishop for Mule Days? My friend and I were talking about Mules a lot at the horse show, I really want one and I love watching what you do with Nilla because I <3 them.
I have been to watch in the past. I'd really like to go and compete, but unfortunately I don't have the time off to spend a week there. And the mule show circuit is more like the western world. The green mules will be mules that have had years of professionally training and held back from showing to clean up at greens that year. I don't need to win every show I go to, but I'm not sure that I want to take a week off work and spend a ton of money just to lose every class.
I would highly recommend going as a spectator though. There are lots of cute mules to see and pet and the classes are really fun to watch.