Jet Propulsion

After I started working with Jet and ran him a couple of times, Marlene approached me about leasing him for the summer. We'd been getting along well and I really enjoyed racing him, so I readily agreed, and we set up a full lease for me through August. So Jet is officially my horse for the summer-- everything from his basic care to his exercise and shoeing is my responsibility. It means that Jet is hands off for everyone else without my permission, and that Debbie and Trina cannot pull him out from under me.

Over the past few weeks I've really begun to enjoy having a horse of my own. Last summer, when I worked with Belle, I wasn't technically leasing her. Not only did her ownership remain Debbie's, but so did her care, so although I rode her most days at work and was allowed to take her to barrel races every other week, she was not my horse. Any time Debbie, Trina, or one of their friends wanted/needed to use her, she became off-limits to me, and at the end of the summer, when their young friend Maya came to stay, I wasn't allowed to ride her at all, and had to stop barrel racing long before the summer circuits ended.

Jet, however, is mine and mine alone, and I can do with him what I please. It's been fantastic so far. Every day I work with him I feel a little bit more confident. I've been learning a lot. If I feel like trail riding, we trail ride. If I think he needs arena work, we work in the arena. If I want to run poles, we run poles. The freedom of having a horse to ride the way I want, instead of doing the basic groundwork and patterns I'm required to do at work, has really made riding fun for me again. If I want to go to a local competition, a barrel race or gymkhana or sorting, all I have to do is hop on and ride him down to the local riding club's arena. We've ridden out on the trail alone, joined up with my best barn friend, Joe, for trail rides, and gone barrel racing every week. We're learning to work together seamlessly, and we trust one another more every day.

Leasing Jet has also packed my schedule. With warm weather firmly in place, I work full days now, and ride Jet every day after work. Most days I leave my apartment not long after dawn and don't get back until dark.

Although I love trail riding and want to try my hand at every horse-related activity I come across, my primary motivation in leasing Jet was to be able to barrel race. Up until last week, I'd run Jet a total of three times. During the first and third runs, I knocked over the second barrel. We were coming in nicely and turning well, but he was turning so sharply I was grazing it with my leg coming off it-- simply an issue with timing on my part. But I had a bigger problem. On all three runs my first barrel was terrible, far too wide and incredibly messy. I couldn't quite work out what I was doing wrong. I just wasn't helping him get around it as I should have.

Finally, last week, the day before our fourth race together, I asked Marlene for a lesson. Although Marlene used to help me often, it's been a long time since I'd had an actual lesson with her. We rarely ride together anymore, as we work different schedules, and I've reached the point in my riding abilities where she and Debbie trust me to work horses alone, without constant supervision and/or guidance. I cannot honestly remember the last time she corrected something in my riding. But as I've started doing more, and I'm now working with a more challenging horse (and working with him exclusively, with no weekly tune-up from Marlene) it's important for me to seek out help.

I asked Marlene to test Jet for soreness, as I was having trouble getting him to take the appropriate lead when loping. We worked for almost an hour and a half, and she identified some things in my riding, general sloppiness, mostly, that, in my limited experience, I'd been unable to recognize, which was allowing Jet to take advantage of the situation. It was nothing serious, but it was was letting Jet develop some (minor) bad habits that was affecting the way he rode. Once she taught me to recognize it, though, I was able to work on correcting it, and get him back to the point where I was fully in control.

The next day, before the race, I concentrated on the exercises she taught me and applying the things I'd learned the day before, trying to keep Jet soft and get him to take his leads correctly, and to stay shaped in the appropriate arc while traveling in circles. When our number came up and it was time for us to race, I let him run and further applied what I'd learned the night before. And Jet turned the first barrel perfectly. Just like that, I'd fixed my biggest problem racing him. We took an entire second off our best race time, and won first place in our division.

I felt so incredible after that run. It seems as if I'm finally figuring him out, and things are falling into place. We're finally starting to get into a groove and work as a team. He's learning that I'm the one doing the driving, and I'm learning how to best support him so he can do his job. After the race was over (and I'd collected my winnings), I told Marlene I wanted to continue having lessons every week the day before races, as it obviously helped! I can only hope that our success continues, and that the way he wrapped that first barrel in our most recent race wasn't just a fluke. I want ALL our runs to feel like that. It was really nice.

Summer is starting to go by very quickly. Every day I look at a calendar and realize how few days actually remain before my move to WCU. I'll be leaving a lot behind; not just Jet, but horseback riding in general. I want to do everything I can to get the most out of my experience with Jet this summer, and I plan on taking advantage of every opportunity I can for us to do something fun together. I know that I'm already a better rider for working with him than I was a few weeks ago, not to mention months ago when I first got on him at work. Hopefully we'll keep having fun throughout the next couple months, and continue to advance in our abilities together. If I have to stop riding, I want to be able to do so knowing that I did everything I could to become the best rider I could with the time that I had.

(Edit: We ran again this week, and took another tenth of a second off our time!)