November 20th - 8:24pm

Good day. Long, hot day. But good day. Warmed up Cor Lit for Martin. Then had a brief flat lesson with Benito. Flat schools for Nixon and Jour. To end the day we had two jumping lessons on Nacar and Holandesa. Martin set out a cavaletti then tree strides to an x-rail followed by 5 longer strides to a jump. The jump started as a small vertical then worked its way up. We were suppose to canter directly in, knowing the striding and get it done. For the most part, I was decently capable. Five strides, however, is just enough space to totally mess up a jump though. As always with riding, it was a matter of constantly checking and correcting to get to the last fence just right. Stop any drift, lengthen or shorten a stride if need be and any number of other things. Nacar was quite well behaved though and one jump in particular felt super nice. Gave the release he needed while holding my body over top of him and my leg. Usually I try to lay out over his neck for whatever bizare reason. Martin often tells me that if his neck had paint on it, Id be covered. But Im trying to improve and feel like I am slowly but steadily. Ended up at just about a 3'3" oxer with Nacar and about a 3'9" or so oxer with Holandesa. She has such a different feel than Nacar on the flat and over fences that sometimes I feel myself struggling to make the switch between the two. Shes a bit quicker to the fences with a slightly shorter stride and uses herself more over the fences. Eventually, though, I got some good goes out of her. Struggled a bit with her to get to my distances and power off the ground as the fences went up but think I know what to change/do differently for next time.  All in all I was decently happy with the jump work. Would have loved to have had more consistency through my work but I know that takes even more time and effort than Ive already put in. Just have to keep pushing.
We built a free jump up in the ring again for tomorrow. Going to be a super busy day with Mono coming and whatever free jumping is happening!