Excellent First Jump Night

Tonight I jumped Jimmy!!! For the first time IN A YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was actually pretty mundane in the scheme of exciting things.

When I got there I set an X up:

The lovely X

While I was unbelievably excited, Jimmy didn't seem to share my enthusiasm:  

"You're acting stupid, Mom. Stop it."

I started with my typical warm up, which you all know & understand painstaking well by this point, I'm sure. He felt very uphill today, which consequently he also brought his head up, but I didn't mind a bit. It was just like he remembered warm up for jumping means track uphill :-) I embraced it. When it came time to jump I just trotted the little X 3 or 4 times. He kind of took off at a random point and landed in a heap the first handful of times. Once he remembered "trot to the base/canter FORWARD away" he was beautiful. I ended with trotting the X and cantering (which ended up being a perfect 5 stride) to the no-stride at the end of the arena in the corner.

X, 5 stride, no-stride (NOTE: He jumped dead center every time! You can see it!! Way to rock, Jim!!)

What a wonderful first time back!!!!!!! I was so thrilled, not only did he handle the jump well, but the way he composed himself through the no-stride tonight was night & day different than last night. Last night it seemed that he was still just "remembering", like his vision was fuzzy in his head & he was pretty sure that's what he was supposed to do, but not 100%. Tonight he cantered up, through, and away. He was just incredible. I couldn't be happier. I am so grateful that he has progressed to this point, and if I were to guess...I see a very bright future of happy jumping days ahead :-D

Jimmy Choo all tucked in for bed