Monday, May 11, 2009

Aishet

Last week I took Aishet over to my trainers barn for some loose schooling over jumps. Aishet was lunged over jumps in Russia as a 3 year old before I bought and imported her so she has had a little experience jumping. As soon as I arrived at the barn we unloaded her and took her into the indoor arena, we decided to lunge her over the jumps the first time. She calmly stood while I put on the lunging halter. First comment from Robin was “wow, she’s a really good mover” as she trotted happily on the end of the line. We put up a small jumping grid and she trotted right over like an old pro so we raised the jumps a little at a time until she had a ground pole, little vertical, ground pole and larger vertical with a little stone wall underneath. She kept jumping and jumping, when she started to tire Robin said “whoa” but she only slowed down and went to the jump again. So Robin pulled the line to get her off the jumping line and she dragged him so she could jump again. At this point Robin and I were both laughing at her need to keep jumping. I said let her jump one more time and then let’s stop her. So around she goes one more time and after that she wanted to jump again so I said “WHOA” and she stopped right in front of the first jump, she looked at me and then jumped from a stand still. Now she is between the two jumps, she walks over the ground pole and sniffs the large vertical jump, again looks at me and then uses her front legs to knock the jump over and walk over the poles. Then she picks up the trot and takes the jumps again this time picking her way over the scattered poles on the ground. Robin and I had a good laugh at Aishet and her love of jumping, she was very happy with herself after showing off her jumping abilities. Robin and I decided Aishet is a good example of why the Teke’s would have made such a good war horse, they are smart enough to figure out a situation and get out of it safely and they are unstoppable.

Anne-Marie
Freedom Run Farm

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