I have a fellow sidesaddler who is also an eventer and show jumper (show jumps well over 1 metre YIKES!), who talked me into hiring the local show jump arena to have a play at jumping sidesaddle. Two things you need to know here:
1. I don't jump. I occassionally play over a cavaletti and that's it.
2. I have NEVER attempted jumping sidesaddle!
For a few days now the weather forecasters have been predicting "the worse snow storm in living memory" so part of me was hoping sunday morning I would wake to a winter wonderland... no such luck, it was mild and sunny. So I loaded up Molly and off we went.
I got to the arena first, so I made two teeny tiny fences for Molly and me to play with. My friend is a natural and once she got the hang of it she was off jumping all the *real* fences in the arena LOL
But here we are at our first attempt at sidesaddle jumping over the world's smallest fence :)
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| A bit much sky showing under my bottom! |
I really like this last photo, it shows her change in attitude once we start playing with fences - ears pricked, forward moving, she is keen but at the same time careful to "look after mum" :)
I have promised to get braver and see if we can get off the ground next time. Unfortunately we don't have access to any instructors here for sidesaddle jumping, so we are trying to teach ourselves. So please post any jumping tips!
